30 least-powerful classic cars

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19. Cadillac Model A – 6.5bhp​

Cadillac’s first car bore a remarkable resemblance to the Ford Model A, no doubt because the company was created from the remains of one founded by Henry Ford.
Although they looked similar, the cars had different engines. While the Ford used a 1668cc flat-twin, the Cadillac was powered by a 1609cc single. Known as Little Hercules, it was controlled by variable inlet valve timing rather than a conventional throttle.
The output of Little Hercules was latterly quoted at 10bhp, but according to contemporary advertising it originally produced 6.5bhp, which would barely be enough to turn the wheels of a modern Escalade.
The lower figure may have been the result of trickery. There has been speculation that Cadillac pretended Little Hercules had less power than it actually did, so customers would be surprised by how well the car performed.

 

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20. Bond Minicar – 5bhp​

Bond’s first car was a three-wheeler which went into production in 1949.
Power, such as there was, came from a 122cc Villiers 10D single-cylinder ’bike engine.
This produced 5bhp, and was used only briefly. The 197cc Villiers 6E, which produced a sturdier 8bhp, was introduced to the range early on, and soon replaced the 10D entirely.

 

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21. Oldsmobile Curved Dash – 5bhp​

The Curved Dash is credited with being the first car assembled on a production line using interchangeable parts, though the workers had to move along the line rather than wait for the parts to move towards them, as was the case with the Ford Model T.
Production began in 1901, when outputs of less than 10bhp were very common.
In fact, the Curved Dash achieved only half that figure, though since it was very light it could reach 20mph even with just 5bhp available.

 

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22. Vauxhall 5hp – 5bhp​

The 5hp was the first Vauxhall car, and one of only two manufactured entirely in London before the company moved to Luton in 1905.
Its engine was a single-cylinder 978cc unit which produced 5bhp at 900rpm.
84 examples were built between May 1903 and February 1904, at which point the engine was replaced by a longer-stroke 1029cc version capable of 6bhp at the same revs.
Many British cars, including the Austin Seven, were named after their RAC horsepower rating, which was calculated for tax purposes, but this was not introduced until 1910, long after these early Vauxhalls went out of production. If it had been brought in a decade earlier, they might both have been called 6hp (or, if absolute accuracy were sought, 6.4hp). Instead, they were named after their power outputs.

 

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23. Peel P50 – 4.2bhp​

Credited as the smallest production car ever made, and one of the very few manufactured on the Isle of Man, the P50 was powered by an appropriately tiny engine.
Supplied by DKW, the single-cylinder two-stroke unit measured just 49cc and produced 4.2bhp. Modest though these numbers undoubtedly are, they represent an impressive specific output of over 85bhp per litre.
A continuation model launched in 2011 also had a 49cc single-cylinder engine – a four-stroke Honda this time – which was only slightly more powerful at 4.8bhp.

 

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24. Opel Patent Motorwagen – 3.5bhp​

Opel never built a car during the lifetime of its founder, Adam Opel, who started out in the sewing-machine business.
Three years after his death in 1895, the family decided to try its hand at manufacturing automobiles.
The first model was officially known as the Opel Patent Motorwagen System Lutzmann after Friedrich Lutzmann, from whom Opel bought the rights to build it. Its single-cylinder 1.5-litre engine was the least powerful in Opel history, producing just 3.5bhp.
Lutzmann is no longer well remembered, but Opel’s current headquarters, factory, design centre and museum are all located on the Friedrich-Lutzmann-Ring in Rüsselsheim.

 

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25. Peugeot VLV – 3.5bhp​

In the approximately century-long period when nobody gave much thought to electric cars, very few major manufacturers troubled themselves to build one.
Peugeot was an exception. From 1941 to 1943, it produced 377 examples of the VLV (short for voiturette légère de ville, or ‘light town car’) to get round a wartime petrol shortage in France before being ordered to stop.
The VLV’s 3.5bhp motor didn’t allow even this tiny car to exceed 20mph, but that wasn’t the point.
In any case, a contemporary review emphasised that a VLV driver “can achieve the same performance as a first-class trained cyclist, and without the least tiredness”.

 

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26. Brütsch Mopetta – 2bhp​

At just 48cc, the ILO V50 engine fitted to the almost microscopic Brütsch Mopetta was the smallest ever used in a production car, if a run of 14 examples counts as production.
Intended for two-wheelers, it produced just 2bhp at full chat.
This may strike you as the absolute minimum, but several other cars had either the same output or an even lower one.

 

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27. Peugeot Type 2 – 2bhp​

After a brief experiment with the steam-powered Type 1 tricycle, which the company has since referred to as a trial run, Peugeot switched to an internal combustion engine for its first ‘proper’ model.
The engine in question was a 565cc V-twin designed by Daimler but built under licence and supplied to Peugeot by Panhard et Levassor, which also (very unenthusiastically) marketed the Type 2.
Maximum output was only 2bhp, but that was enough for a car which found its first buyer in 1891.
Peugeot continued to use the engine for three years before switching to another Daimler twin of more than twice the capacity and almost double the power.

 

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28. Renault Voiturette – 1.7bhp​

The original Voiturette (French for ‘little car’) had a 273cc De Dion engine which produced significantly less than 2bhp.
Strange as it may seem now, the resulting performance was so startling that the car became arguably the most significant Renault would ever build.
On Christmas Eve 1898, Louis Renault astonished onlookers by demonstrating that it could chug up the intimidatingly steep Rue Lepic in Paris without the driver having to get out and push.
By midnight, he had taken orders for a dozen replicas. This led directly to the Renault company being established the following year.

 

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29. Benz Velo – 1.5bhp​

As we’ve seen, the Oldsmobile Curved Dash was the first car built on an assembly line, and the Ford Model T the first built on a moving one.
The Benz Velocipede, usually known as the Velo, has a smaller but still respectable claim to fame. With more than 1200 built from 1894 to 1902, it can reasonably be described as the first mass-produced car.
Very much smaller and lighter than the roughly contemporary Benz Viktoria, whose 1730cc engine produced 3bhp to start with and doubled its output during production, the little Velo performed adequately with the help of a 1045cc unit capable of just 1.5bhp.
More power soon became available. A better-equipped version of the Velo known as the Comfortable reached 3.5bhp in 1901.

 

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30. Benz Patent Motorwagen – 0.72bhp​

Possible candidates for the world’s first car date back to at least 1770, but Carl Benz’s 1885 machine usually gets the credit.
In this original form, the Patent Motorwagen had a 954cc single-cylinder engine producing just under three-quarters of a brake horsepower.
As with the Velo, development was rapid. Several more examples were built over the next nine years, and by the end of it all the Patent Motorwagen had a 1990cc engine and, at 3bhp, about four times the original power output.