TRY THESE FOR SIZE

Octane visits the National Microcar Rally and samples some of the smallest machines ever to call themselves a car

- John Simister

WHERE IS THE NATIONAL MICROCAR RALLY? Follow the smoke, the soothing aroma of combusted two-stroke oil, and arrive at the Cotswold Wildlife Park just outside Burford, Oxfordshire. Why here, and won't the animals object? Because it’s where this event started, 50 years ago, so there’s celebrating to do.

So what will we see there? That depends on what it means to be a microcar. Broadly, a microcar for the purposes of this event's organisers is a car with an engine under 600cc or three wheels, or in many cases both attributes. It’s not vital for that engine to be a two-stroke, but many are, not least because they tend to be smoother and more powerful than a same-size four-stroke and therefore better at propelling something that purports to be a car.

You can picture the sort of thing, and plenty are pictured here. But beyond the vrooming, popping two-strokes we'll also encounter Bond Bugs, a couple of obscurities with A-series engines and, going up a wheel, various flavours of Fiat 500. The modern world is acknowledged with a smart or two and several Swiss-designed, Italian-made Microlinos, electric-powered and resembling an inflated Isetta.

And, in the spirit of the event, the organisers have also welcomed the odd rule-bender: a four-wheeled Bond Bug and the Steyr-Puch 650S that my Rover 2000 TC and I passed on the way to the event. They even let me park the Rover in the ‘Others of Interest’ section, despite it being anything but micro. One of two very pretty Goggomobil TS coupés in red and white parked next to it.

A quick survey of the assembled miniature motor cars brings me straight back to my childhood, for I am old enough to remember Bond Minicars, Heinkel and Isetta bubblecars, and Perspex-canopied Messerschmitts as regular features of the roadscape.