There are several concepts in the making right now but all are characterized by the same thing: their very small size when compared to normal vehicles. That's why all the pictures so far show the car as a green aerodynamic shape. The only word we've got so far from the man himself is “revolutionary” which is a pretty promising adjective.
Car Online magazine has interviewed the man behind this revolution, Gordon Murray, and he had this to say; “We have been inundated with inquiries in the past two or three months. We're seeing a huge swing to smaller cars in America, and this time at least a percentage of it is irreversible. We thought there would be a five-year delay before we brought it to America but I think we were wrong on that and the programme will have to be accelerated. You can probably chop half off that”.
The first cars are expected to hit the road in early 2009, and from the looks of things they'll also hit America as well. Which is a break from the original plan, that saw it released just in Europe and Japan.
All we have right now is figures and we aim to dazzle you with them. So here it goes: the car will weigh in at 550 kg and produce 40% less CO2 than full-size automobiles, it will have a 51 bhp engine fitted, a 3-cylinder engine that will run on petrol and that will have a 81 mpg average. The final cost of the car will be 5500 pounds.
But just how small will this car be folks? Well, the official tin foil pictures show the car near a MINI and a Fiat 500 and it really is smaller than either of them, so there, you now have a point of reference. We've added some pictures so you can get the overall idea.
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