Smallest in the World

Welcome to Smallest in the World the leading online reference site for all things that are small in this world. Visit some of our categories to explore the smallest things in the world. This one will get you started on what is small and what is the smallest!

Smallest Car in the World - The Peel P50

The Peel P50 was a three-wheeled microcar manufactured in 1963 and 1964 by the Manx Peel Engineering Company. It retailed for £199 when new and currently holds the record for the smallest-ever automobile to go into production. It was designed as a city car and was advertised as capable of seating “one adult and a shopping bag.” The vehicle’s only door was on its left side, and equipment included a single windscreen wiper, and only one headlight. Standard colours were Daytona White, Dragon Red, and Capri Blue. The prototype for this model was referred to as the Peel P55 Saloon Scooter having one front wheel and 2 rear wheels - the opposite way round from the production Peel P50.

Statistics

At just 134 cm (52.8 in) long and 99 cm (39.0 in) wide, with a weight of only 59 kg (130 lb), the car holds the record as the smallest ever automobile to go into production. The P50 used a 49 cc (3.0 cu in) DKW engine which gave it a top speed of approximately 61 km/h (38 mph), and was equipped with a three-speed manual transmission that had no reverse gear. Consequently, turning in a confined area could only be achieved by pushing, or lifting the car using the handle on the rear and physically pulling it round. The makers claimed it was capable of an impressive 100 UK MPG (2.8L/100km, 83 US MPG). Despite its diminutive stature, the Peel P50 is street-legal in the UK. Some of the cars have been exported to other countries outside the UK, although it might not be street-legal in these countries.

Availability

The original production run of about 50 cars were sold at retail for just under £200.[1] As only about twenty Peel P50s survive, originals now command prices in the region of £35,000 to £50,000. However, reproductions produced by Andy Carter, Nottingham, UK sell for about £10,000.

Top Gear feature

On October 28, 2007, the car was featured in a humorous segment on the popular BBC motoring programme Top Gear on BBC Two, during which the 6 ft 5 in (196 cm) presenter Jeremy Clarkson was seen shoehorning himself into the car and driving through central London to work and through hallways of the BBC’s offices. During the segment, Clarkson incorrectly stated that the tiny P50 was subject to the London congestion charge, unlike the much larger Lexus RX vehicle used as a camera platform, which qualifies for exemption from the charge on the grounds of its petrol-electric hybrid powerplant. In fact the P50 also qualifies for exemption, under a provision allowing three-wheeled vehicles of less than 100 cm (39.4 in) width and 200 cm (78.7 in) length to enter the Congestion Charge Zone without charge. He also mentioned that the car would have been the best car ever made, had it only had a reverse gear.

Nanotechnology

In the world of nanotechnology, which is measured in molecules, engineers crafted some nifty miniature machinery this year. Different teams created the world’s smallest car, motor, robot, refrigerator and fountain pen. One hope is that these tiny machines, invisible to the human eye, will one day be used to deliver drugs into cells, perhaps to destroy cancer or cure other ills. Technology tasks are envisioned too. In one nifty breakthrough, researchers merged microbe and machine for the first time, creating gold-plated bacteria that sense humidity.

Using the parts inside a single molecule, scientists have constructed the world’s smallest car. It has a chassis, axles and a pivoting suspension. The wheels are buckyballs, spheres of pure carbon containing 60 atoms apiece. It’d be a real squeeze to take it for a spin, however. The whole car is no more than 4 nanometers across. That’s slightly wider than a strand of DNA. A human hair is about 80,000 nanometers thick. Other groups have made car-shaped nanoscale objects. But this is the first one that rolls “on four wheels in a direction perpendicular to its axles,” the researchers reported Thursday.

What’s the point? Nanotrucks, of course. Eventually the researchers want to build tiny trucks that could carry atoms and molecules around in miniature factories. “We’d eventually like to move objects and do work in a controlled fashion on the molecular scale, and these vehicles are great test beds for that,” said James Tour, a Rice University research who co-led the work. “They’re helping us learn the ground rules.” The setup will be detailed in an upcoming issue of the journal Nano Letters. The scientists had to use “scanning tunneling microscopy” to see the thing and prove that it rolls like a car. “It’s fairly easy to build nanoscale objects that slide around on a surface,” said Tour’s colleague Kevin Kelly. “Proving that we were rolling – not slipping and sliding – was one of the most difficult parts of this project.”

So just how do you make a nanocar go? At room temperature, strong electrical bonds hold the buckyball wheels tightly against the gold, but heating to about 200 degrees Celsius frees them to roll.