Small, cheap, strange: the history of microcars

European car manufacturers are currently struggling to figure out what personal transportation and “last mile” solutions will look like in the future. The solution is always electrical and compact. What most companies (Citroën, Renault, Fiat) seem to have forgotten is that we have an answer to this problem: microcars.

A compact car is something very small. The mission of a compact car is to get one (or maybe two) people where they need to go, while taking up as little space as possible. Some have broken into the public consciousness.top gear Peel has become a global megastar in automobiles, BMW’s Isetta remains a design icon and the Messerschmitt KR200 is downright cool, but where did this little wonder come from? And do they have a future?

Well, without the predecessors of the microcar, we might not have modern cars as we know them. Sort of.

Let’s go back to the origins of the automobile: the Mercedes-Benz Patent Motorwagen. Although it was by no means a small car (it could only seat two people, had a small engine and only three wheels), it captured the imagination of many.

In 1885, Karl Benz invented the automobile and while his wife was traveling in the car, French inventor Léon Bollée focused his thoughts. Although he was 15 years old at the time, it gave him time to focus his thoughts. At that age, he had a keen mind enough to invent a type of pedal boat. Bollée was at least smart. He created a calculator to help his father in his business. One of them won a prize at the 1889 Paris Exposition and was patented worldwide.

In 1895, Bollée and his father built “La Novelle”, a steam-powered tricycle, and in the same year Bollée also built a gasoline-powered tricycle. A year later, Bollée founded Léon Bollée Automobiles to mass-produce his compact car, which he named “Voiturette”. It is a combination of the French word for car (voiture) and the suffix attached to a word (ette). Basically a compact car.

A few years later, Renault (maker of small hatchbacks, makers of the gloriously silly Avantime and popularizer of European people carriers) became a car manufacturer with the launch of the descriptively named Voiturette. Louis Renault’s little mechanical wonder was built in 1898, and the first car was sold to a friend of Louis’s father on Christmas Eve of the same year. He liked the fuel economy of the single-cylinder De Dion-Bouton 273cc 1.75hp (1.3). kW) engine makes it easy to get around town.

That night, Renault sold 12 more cars. In just five years of production, the first Renault evolved from an open-top two-seater to a four-seat covered wagon capable of speeds in excess of 35 mph (56 km/h). Keep in mind that less than 100 years later, Stevenson’s rocket and its top speed of nearly 30 miles per hour raised great concerns about whether human physiology could withstand such speeds. 35 mph was quite an achievement.

The Voiturettes and their less “ette” siblings were very successful, but may have been too much for some. This is where cycle cars come in.

Cycle cars, which first appeared around 1910, featured small engines – single cylinders, V-twins, and the odd four-cylinder – mounted on simple, lightweight four-wheeled bodies. To be a cycle car, the vehicle had to have a gearbox and clutch. A huge industry sprang up around them, and for good reason. While regular cars had high taxes and operating costs, cycle cars did not.