When some of us were children in the 90s, it was common for small cars to be sold with engines that made less than 100 hp. Do you remember the Ford Aspire and its 63-hp 1.3-liter four-cylinder engine? Or what about the geo metro, with only three cylinders and 55 hp? At the start of the decade you could buy a Jugo with, again, 55 hp of a 1.1-liter carburated engine.
The days of motorbikes of Sub-100 hp are over, right? The answer is no. Daily rev The 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine recently discovered its thing in the 2025 Toyota Corolla Hybrid only produces 96 hp. Yes, in combination with the hybrid components of the car, the entire powertrain produces a combined 138 hp, but the gas motor itself can crack three -stern figures. The good news is that the fuel efficiency of the 50 miles per gallon charts is together.
What is more is that we almost left the era of cars of less than 100 hp completely with the death of the Mitsubishi Mirage. The sale of that Econobox and its 78 hp 1.2-liter three-cylinder engine ended with the 2024 model. Thanks to Toyota, however, we still buy cars in the 21st century with engines that earn less than 100 hp.
Why we love our weak engines
When fuel consumption is the top priority, it is not possible to help much that goal to achieve faster than a weak engine. The aforementioned geo -metro with 55 hp was officially rated with 41 mpg combined in 1990, although owners will tell you that it was even more economical on the road. Weaker engines are also usually smaller, both in size and in weight, which further helps fuel efficiency.
Leisure
The least powerful four-wheeled vehicle that could be considered a “car” was probably the Peel P50 from 1964, a comically small transport with a 0.50-liter engine that produced 4.2 hp.
However, the days of small subcompact cars that run around with rubber band engines are over. The Mirage was the last of a dying breed here in the US. The Corolla hybrid and its peers are therefore a new era of weak gas engines in combination with hybrid systems to form a powertrain with sufficient growl to move a modern car with all these extra things.
Other car manufacturers do the same. The Hyundai Elantra Hybrid and Kia Niro Hybrid/PHEV both have a 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine that, for example, only earns 104 hp. The total combined rating with their electric motors is 139 hp. The end result is a fantastic fuel consumption: the Elantra Hybrid from 2025 is also rated with a maximum of 50 mpg combined.
Take top speeds
Although it is true, we are currently in the middle of another war war that regularly produces cars with more than 1,000 hp, it seems that the other end of the spectrum has stubbornly refused to admit. Thanks to the arrival of hybrid technology, too few engines with less than 100 hp can live happily under the hoods of fuel misers, where performance is not a priority.
Small engines can be just as interesting as large and powerful, if we are honest with ourselves. In some cases they are part of a holistic system that depends on weight saving, aerodynamics, specific acceleration and more to create an ultra-efficient vehicle. That is the case with the Corolla Hybrid with its 50-MPG combined fuel consumption classification, a figure that could not be found alone long ago in his over-performing, more expensive and highly specialized brother or sister, the Prius. The Corolla Hybrid from 2025 now has a starting price of only $ 23,825, which is partly due to the record-weaker engine that helps it feeding it.
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