A YouTuber armed with a 1988 Ford Festiva and a workshop full of lasers may have created the world’s thinnest street-legal car—-though it required some serious work to get it there. Tyler Fever, who runs the YouTube channel Prop Department, took the already tiny Festiva and chopped it to pieces, ultimately creating a roughly shopping-cart-sized contraption that resembles something out of The Flintstones. Somehow, Fever even managed to fit two seats into that tiny vehicle. More surprisingly still, he claims he managed to get the little death trap fully insured.
All of this, he says, was part of an effort to make what calls the world’s “most pathetic car” even more ridiculous.
“We’re going to make it even smaller and more pathetic looking,” Fever says in the video.
I Built the THINNEST Street Legal Car
Making a tiny car even tinier
Even unmodified, the Festiva certainly isn’t large. When it was released in mid-1987, it was already one of the smallest mass-produced cars ever built. It wasn’t exactly a hit, either. The car was discontinued in the Americas in 1993, but lived on in other markets. Still, its tiny stature makes it a great base for building a ludicrously thin car.
To start, Fever stripped out the entire interior of the car, leaving only its empty husk. Part of that undeniably cathartic process involved using a tank of liquid nitrogen to freeze stubborn parts and make them easier to break off. Then, using a powerful metal laser and a CNC cutter, he and his team sliced the car directly down the middle. The lasers were so powerful that they ended up cutting clean through the metal and continued into the ground below. Needless to say, think twice before trying this at home.
It became clear early on that the Festiva’s original engine wouldn’t fit in the slimmed-down model. To fix that, Fever removed it and replaced it with a motor from a powerful electric dirt bike. That had the added benefit of not just being compact but also offering a rechargeable battery. But the tiny new form factor quickly introduced other unforeseen problems. Most glaring, the shrunken frame meant the steering wheel was impeding Fever’s ability to use the brake pedal. That was solved by taking a saw and simply cutting the steering wheel in half, leaving a futuristic half-wheel reminiscent of what you’d find in some Tesla models. Even cut, Fever still had to slightly shimmy and duck every time he tried to turn the car.
Fever also needed to redesign the dashboard to ensure the car could be considered street legal. He custom 3D-printed brackets for the lights, mirrors, and other safety features, then powered those elements using a 12 volt battery. That battery was strong enough to run the headlamps and horn, and even managed to juice a pair of phone chargers.
When they reassembled the two halves of the car, the team was left with something cramped, but not so much that it was undrivable. They even included a tiny space directly behind the driver where a passenger, in this case Fever’s cameraman, could crouch.
After a few more tests and a bright yellow paint job, it was time to take the car out for a drive around Nashville, Tennessee. Almost immediately, the tiny car started turning heads. Fever drove it on public roads, took it to a gas station, and even drove over a major bridge entering downtown Nashville without any issue.
Despite being hacked together in only a couple of weeks, it seemed to drive remarkably well. The car also proved remarkably adept at maneuvering and parking in the city’s sometimes traffic-packed spaces. In one clip, Fever can be seen taking the Festiva up a parking garage ramp and nestling it between a Jeep and a sports car. And while it definitely isn’t the most practical choice for getting around town, Fever says the fact that it managed to drive at all counts as a win.
“This was a successful project I think,” Fever said. “I’m actually blown away by how well it drives on the street and everyone loves it.”
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