Greatest machines with 100 horsepower or less

Or, put it another way, how little can you get away with? Colin Goodwin chooses five sub-100bhp heroes that eschew outright speed without falling short on fun.

Not so long ago, I drove the new Mercedes AMG A35. Very competent, very well made, a splendidly posh interior and very fast. Its 2.0-litre turbocharged engine produces 306bhp, which is enough to propel the all-wheel-drive A35 from 0-62mph in less than five seconds.

And then Mercedes followed this car up with a new A45 with 415bhp. That’s 25% more power than the A35, but will it deliver 25% more fun? Of course, it won’t. Not that the A35 is exactly fun to drive, it’s just extremely sure-footed and quick.

The horsepower race is completely out of control. A hatchback is warm if it has only 150bhp and a supercar with less than 600bhp, well, it isn’t a proper supercar, is it? It’s all marketing led: engineers know that it’s all nuts and that adding horsepower almost always means adding weight.

You simply don’t need lots of power to have fun, as anyone who has owned a Citroën 2CV will tell you. Or an old Mini Cooper S. In fact, there are plenty of cars that have no more than 100bhp that are a hoot.

It’s a nice round figure, 100bhp. Running that number around in my head got me thinking about machines that have that little power but which are huge fun. Not just cars, but motorcycles and other transport devices. Aeroplanes, for example. A Piper Cub is a very basic machine that has as little as 65bhp but which is a joy to fly.

To prove the point, we’ve brought together a collection of wonderful machines, none of which has more than 100bhp – some less than half our maximum, in fact. Some are old and some are new and to counter my reputation as a Luddite, one is even electric. And just wait until you read about the performance of the Cassutt aeroplane that we’ve brought along…

Cost: From £2500

My sister has never heard of car designer Gordon Murray but she has one thing in common with him: they both own Smart Roadsters.

They both love them, too, while acknowledging their shortcomings. The little Smart is almost the perfect sports car in miniature, probably as close to an Austin-Healey ‘frogeye’ Sprite as it’s possible to get in the 21st century. Murray, who owns the car in our photographs, is also a Sprite owner.

With only 80bhp from its three-cylinder turbocharged motor, the Smart comfortably qualifies for this group.

Two versions of the Roadster were produced: the simple Roadster with its notch back and the Roadster Coupé convertible like Murray’s (and big sister’s). The latter is the heavier at 815kg (1793 lb) but that’s still light and gives us a power-to-weight ratio of 98bhp per tonne.

The Smart’s achilles heel, apart from possible water leaks, is its six-speed sequential gearbox. It's jerky and unsophisticated but, once you’ve got used to it, allows you to drive the car accordingly – at which point the fun overtakes the irritation.

Cost: From £45,000

The Ford gearbox is a three-speeder with no synchromesh on first. Over the years, many people have swapped their car’s original worm and roller steering for a more modern rack. Ours still has the former and is rather vague but, because everything about driving this car requires forethought and because it gives such an undiluted experience, it doesn’t matter.

Cost: £12,400

Motorcycles are my longest-running love affair. Years ago, my colleague Steve Cropley and I agreed that we’d both rather own a very modest car and a motorcycle rather than some flash sports car and no bike. I’m even more convinced of that today.

There are Rain, Road and Sport ridng modes, but the engine’s power delivery is so smooth that even Sport, with its quicker throttle response, is fine on a wet road.

I don’t like old motorcycles. Mostly they’re rubbish, or, more to the point, most don’t handle properly, don’t stop properly, have tyres that don’t grip and are unreliable.

I’ve had my share of Nortons, Triumphs and Laverdas and I wouldn’t want any one of them back. Riding this Thruxton R convinces me further. It has lovely handling, the brakes are phenomenal and there’s as much power as you’d ever need.

That said, the vehicle that I most covet is Ducati’s Panigale V4 (pictured). Not because it has more than 200bhp but because it is so gorgeous with exquisite detailing down to the smallest bolt. And because its engine sounds so outrageous.

However, I would feel the same way about it if it had half the horsepower.

Cost: £7595 (plus battery rental)

A modern car that fits our remit? This took some head-scratching and ultimately a call to Matts Saunders and Prior for help.

Suzuki Swift? Not as fun as it used to be. A basic Ford Fiesta? Not good enough. Caterham’s Suzuki-powered 130 would have been great but it’s no longer built. The Morgan 3 Wheeler is an obvious alternative, reckoned both Matts. “Or,” they said, “a Renault Twizy.”

A brilliant suggestion. I haven’t driven one since Renault’s wacky foray into EVs was launched. It certainly comes in well under our 100bhp upper limit, with just 17bhp from its electric motor.

Even the new electric world is becoming obsessed with performance, but that’s not a failing with the Twizy and its top speed of just 50mph.

At this time of year, you can expect to travel 31 miles on a charge, so with this limited top end and short range, the Twizy is most at home, and most fun, in town.

It’d be even more fun if our urban streets weren’t in such poor repair, because the little Renault doesn’t have a particularly smooth ride. Skinny tyres, rather odd-feeling steering and an unusual perspective on the road make for an entertaining drive – entertaining, as in it’s impossible to stop grinning.

Cost: £20,000

Now, this little machine really is mind-blowing. It’s called the Cassutt Special and it was originally designed back in 1951 by TWA airline pilot Tom Cassutt, specifically for air racing.

The tiny fuselage is a steel tube spaceframe wrapped in fabric, while the wings are all wood with spruce spars and ribs with ply wood skins. It’s powered by a Continental 0-200, which is a 200-cubic-inch – that’s 3.3 litres – flat-four air-cooled engine driving a fixed-pitch wooden propeller.

That simple engine produces a modest 100bhp, so it just qualifies the Cassutt for our group. Empty, the aircraft weighs only 276kg (607 lb).

Now to the performance. Ready? This bijou craft will cruise straight and level at 180mph and has a VNE (velocity never exceed) of 248mph. That’s what 100bhp can do for you if you have a low-drag airframe and low weight. Amazing, isn’t it?

If you suffer from claustrophobia, then you won’t like the Cassutt Special. The cockpit is tiny and the old cliché that you ‘wear it ’ is almost true.

It’s a straightforward plane to fly but it’s the landing that’s not so easy. The snag is that you have to fly the final approach at 100mph, which is faster than most light aircraft and even a Spitfire.

The Cassutt Special has been hugely successful in the famous Reno air races in Nevada and is used today in the rejuvenated F1 air racing championship. If you own a racing car, even if it’s road-legal like a D-Type Jaguar, you need to take it onto a track to properly enjoy it. You don’t need to do the same with a machine like the Cassutt. It is fully aerobatic, so you can loop and roll it on a sunny day and get your kicks from that.

And even more fun, you can tear through valleys at over 200mph, pretending that you are a fast jet pilot. Legally, too. Best of all, you can use 100% of the aircraft ’s performance. What percentage of a McLaren 720S’s full potential can you use on the road? I’d wager just 30% at most.

So there we have Colin's five 100bhp machines. But here are some alternatives...

Known as the grey Fergie, this lightweight tractor was the first vehicle that I steered with my own hands, sat on the lap of a farm-owning family friend in around 1966. My wife’s uncle has one today and I drive it to his local pub in Linton, Yorkshire.

Speed on water feels twice what it does on land. The aluminium Albatross is the Lotus 6 of the water, not least because it could be fitted with the same Ford E93a engine, or a Coventry Climax engine with which it could do over 50mph. Both Grace Kelly and Brigitte Bardot were owners.

I’ve never tried hovercraft racing but it looks like a lot of fun. I know nothing about the subject but a bit of research reveals that the Hovercraft Club of Great Britain has a class called Formula 35, for 35bhp machines. That, rather than the 200bhp-plus Formula 1 class, seems ideal for the beginner.

Ever seen the video of trials ace Dougie Lampkin riding around/inside/on top of Goodwood House? Go to it immediately. Trials riding is amazingly good fun. In no other form of motorsport does speed play such little part. Gas Gas makes bikes from 125cc to 300cc, and not even the latter has more than 50bhp.

You could cut our lawn with nail scissors it’s so small, so my life’s ambition of owning a ride-on mower looks as though it’ll never be achieved. Still, I want this 22bhp, top of-the-range John Deere X590. Honda also makes lawn tractors but they’re a bit too, er, Honda-ish.