A city car is a small, moderately powered automobile intended for use in urban areas. It has four seats, they are typically between 3.4 m and 3.6 m long. These cars have been sold in Europe since the 1960s, and now are an official car classification. Most mainstream manufacturers have one or even two city cars in their lineup. The city car's greater speed and occupant protection allow relatively safe operation in mixed traffic environments and in all weather conditions. One of the earliest city cars was the American-made Crosley, a four passenger vehicle from the late 1940's. While many cars of the 1960s are small enough to be considered city cars today, these cars have been replaced by larger cars with each passing generation. Exceptions are the smaller Fiats, especially the Fiat 500 and Fiat 126. They were in the region of 3.0 meters in length, but had seating for four people, putting them outside the micro car category. wiki city car In the late 1980s superminis had grown so much that many buyers wanted even smaller four-seat cars. Renault followed Fiat in 1993 with the Renault Twingo, which featured a MPV-like design and interior room, despite its size and height (3430 mm long and 1420 mm tall). Combined with an original exterior and interior design, it quickly became a best-seller. In 1996 the Ford Ka was presented with its radical New Edge design. Its egg-shaped body did not leave much room in the rear seats, but many customers did not need them and preferred the Ka over more conservative designs.

In the mid 1990s, South Korean brands Daewoo and Hyundai introduced their city car entries, both for the Asian and European markets. The Hyundai Atos, launched in 1997, was 3500 mm long and 1600 mm high, which was much taller than any European models (usually under 1450 mm) and provided considerable interior space. Its boxy shape provoked mixed reactions.

The Daewoo Matiz followed in 1998 with a Giorgetto Giugiaro design and a moderate height (1500 mm), which proved more eye-catching. Hyundai tried to react to this with the rounder Atos Prime but without much success.

These Korean city cars were much cheaper than most of the European models, especially the Opel Agila (2000) and Volkswagen Lupo (1999), yet were still reliable. However, sales were dominated by the Renault Twingo and Ford Ka.

City car / supermini crossovers

While small family cars and superminis grew considerably from the 1990s to the 2000s, so happened with city cars. After some new superminis were over 3900 mm long (like the Ford Fiesta, the SEAT Ibiza, Maruti Alto and the Volkswagen Polo) some automakers designed models above 3650 mm long.

Gasoline Engines

Gasoline engines have the advantage over diesel in being lighter and able to work at higher rotational speeds and they are the usual choice for fitting in high-performance sports cars. Continuous development of gasoline engines for over a hundred years has produced improvements in efficiency and reduced pollution. The carburetor was used on nearly all road car engines until the 1980s but it was long realized better control of the fuel/air mixture could be achieved with fuel injection. Indirect fuel injection was first used in aircraft engines from 1909, in racing car engines from the 1930s, and road cars from the late 1950s.

Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) is now starting to appear in production vehicles such as the 2007 BMW MINI. Exhaust gases are also cleaned up by fitting a catalytic converter into the exhaust system. Clean air legislation in many of the car industries most important markets has made both catalysts and fuel injection virtually universal fittings. Most modern gasoline engines are also capable of running with up to 15% ethanol mixed into the gasoline - older vehicles may have seals and hoses that can be harmed by ethanol. With a small amount of redesign, gasoline-powered vehicles can run on ethanol concentrations as high as 85%. 100% ethanol is used in some parts of the world (such as Brazil), but vehicles must be started on pure gasoline and switched over to ethanol once the engine is running. Most gasoline engines cars can also run on LPG with the addition of an LPG tank for fuel storage and carburetion modifications to add an LPG mixer. LPG produces fewer toxic emissions and is a popular fuel for fork lift trucks that have to operate inside buildings.