Think again. No matter how quick cars get, there will always be dawdlers at the back and these seven cars officially take the longest to reach acceptable motorway speeds (aka 62mph).
One upside of slow cars is that they tend to be cheaper to run and cost less to insure. So it’s not all bad…
Skoda Fabia 1.0 59bhp
0-62mph: 15.7 seconds
Long gone are the days when saying nice things about Skoda would summon anything from a smirk to a full-on lol from whoever was listen in earshot. Since becoming part of the Volkswagen Group, genuinely brilliant cars like the Yeti compact SUV and Golf-based Octavia have transformed the once-ridiculed Czech brand beyond recognition.
Sadly, the Fiesta-sized Fabia harks back to the bad old days. Don’t get us wrong, the Fabia is a well-worked supermini with decent handling and styling that clearly resonates with today’s car buyers. But fitted with this weedy one-litre petrol, pumping out 59bhp, it doesn’t fare well at all. The same engine is available in the Citigo and it did nothing for that city car’s credibility either.
Smart Forfour 1.0 70bhp
0-62mph: 16.9 seconds
The Forfour is back, but with a nigh 17 second 0-62mph, only just. As with the Skoda, the same engine is used in its smaller sibling – this time, the two-seater Fortwo – and it’s proving a foolproof way to end up in this list.
Mitsubishi i-Miev / Peugeot iOn / Citroen C-Zero
0-62mph: 15.9 seconds
We’ve already laid into the C-Zero once this month and it looks like we’re going to have to do it again here.
Twisting the knife feels somewhat cruel because the C-Zero and its electric siblings – essentially the same car with different brand-specific styling – were some of the first fully-electric cars made available to the public.
You wouldn’t compare your first ever Nokia to your all-singing smartphone, therefore it’s similarly unkind to view this car from the same perspective as the Tesla Model S. Still, criminals must have chuckled when Thames Valley Police added an i-MiEV to its crime-fighting fleet.
Hyundai i20 1.1 CRDi Blue 74bhp
0-62mph: 16.0 seconds
When this exact i20 suddenly appeared on my elderly neighbour’s driveway, life made perfect sense.
Here was a car so stylistically anonymous, unexciting and bang-average that only anyone deep into retirement would choose to drive it.
It being diesel means that it’ll need a good run on an M-road every so often to unclog the DPF filter and with a 16 second 0-62mph sprint, it sounds like a recipe for disaster to us. One thing in its favour though, it’s super cheap to run, returning 88.3mpg combined with no road tax to pay.
Kia Rio 1.1 CRDi 73bhp
0-62mph: 16.1 seconds
Pretty much everything we just said about that Hyundai could be said in reference to this Kia Rio. That’s because it uses the exact same engine, albeit a fraction less powerful so it adds a tenth of a second to its 0-62mph time despite being marginally lighter (33kg).
Ford Fiesta 1.25 59bhp
0-62mph: 16.9 seconds
What is Britain’s best-selling car since 2009 doing here? Well, they can’t all be zingers and this weakest model pours cold water on the Fiesta party. It still boasts the famous slick handling and good looks, but it’s the absolute antithesis of the blistering ST200 model, which is good for 0-62mph in 6.7 seconds.
Suzuki Jimny Auto 1.3 83bhp
0-62mph: 17.2 seconds
Confession time: For a very long time, I really wanted a Jimny.
With an elevated ride height, removable roof, solid off-road capabilities, room for four and an irresistible rugged but slightly cutesy look, there wasn’t much to dislike.
However, its weak points are fatally off-putting. It verges on hateful when driven on actual roads, as opposed to in muddy ditches, and there’s really no coming back from the fact that it’s officially the slowest car on the roads right now. I still kinda want one though…
Honourable mentions:
There are slower vehicles you can buy, but they’re not strictly ‘cars’; they’re vans, and they are Nissan’s NV200 Combi (17.0 seconds), Hyundai’s i800 2.5 CRDi (17.6 seconds) and Peugeot’s Expert Tepee L2 HDi 98 (20.7 seconds).
It’s also worth mentioning Renault’s all-electric Twizy, which again isn’t a car but a quadricycle. With a 50mph top speed, it can’t even reach 62mph, but it can do 30mph in 4.4 seconds which makes it a real hoot to drive, if slightly unnerving.
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