Really tiny cars

This is a posting composed before I left for India. It's pretty fly-weight, but it's got to get put out there sometime or another. Might as well be now.



Mike measures an "Aixam" model at the local grocery store.

 Probably because their roads originated millennia ago as footpaths and cow tracks, grew to accommodate a cart and horse, and got frozen at that size by the buildings that had sprung up, Italians seem to love small cars. They are, in other words, size appropriate for Italian city streets. And garages. We were walking along a side street in Bassano when a guy opened his garage door, drove out his BMW, parked it, wheeled out his motorcycle, then drove the Beemer back in where it rejoined his other motorcycle and a Smart Car. The garage was what we in the States would call a "one car garage."

I think one of the Fathers at the Istituto Filippin drives this. It's a Fiat that's a few decades old, and one of my favorites. If I had managed to have Mike stand next to this guy, it would probably come up to the bottom of his ribcage. It makes a Smart Car look like a Jeep. What it really needs is a big wind-up key on its back.

This is a recent Fiat model, parked at Bassano for one of the passegiatta evenings. I saw several of these in England, too, as they are incredibly good on both mileage and air quality.

And this smallest of all is actually from Barcelona! I don't remember its make, it may be an early Smart car.

OK, it's not only the Italians who like these. I do too. Our CIMBA- issued car is a pretty standard, black four-door Fiat sedan/hatchback - a Punto. But one of the other profs here got this beauty:

 That's right, it's a cherry-red, black-trimmed Citroen convertible! Mike Harnden, I can hear you groan with envy. Me too.