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Comment by harwoodr | Hacker News Reader

I used to drive a 1991 Suzuki Cappuccino - a tiny right-hand drive kei sports car. The first couple of years I drove it, the police pulled me over on a regular basis - no tickets issued but lots of questions asked.

One time while I was waiting for a light, an officer knocked on my window (which is somewhat startling)... I rolled it down and he excitedly asked "What kind of car is this?!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_Cappuccino

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It's pleasantly surprising how much positive vibes you can get driving an unusual car. On a business trip last year, I arrived late at night to the hotel and there was a rank of the smallest cars I'd ever seen:

https://www.drive.com.au/news/microlino-battery-electric-bub...

The next morning I was able to hire one out to travel to the venue. At a pitstop on the way, another driver followed me into the carpark and excitedly asked me where I found the car so that he could go get one too.

To be honest, it wasn't a comfortable or easy drive. The speed topped out at 90kph and the steering felt gravelly. But it was fun getting in and out of the front of the car.

I guess you wouldn't really want to go any faster in this kind of car?

I guess it's slightly safer than a motorbike.

I'd wager a motorbike is much safer traveling at the same speed

Why do you say that?

At 90kph if you go on the motorway/highway then you're often a sitting duck in the slow lane being continuously overtaken by massive lorries. That didn't feel very safe. Arguably you should avoid motorways in these cars, but it was the only sensible route for me.

That's just not enough motive to waste someone's time.

And, no offense intended, that car is not that interesting. I guess policing must be boring.

It’s notable mostly for being tiny. With a human for scale: (sorry, it’s an instagram link)

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNI1TfAxyIZ/?utm_source=ig_we...

I was stopped eight times in one day driving my DeLorean "time machine" replica. My friend has videos of the (literally) hundreds of times he has been stopped.

It's always for some made up traffic offense ("your lights weren't working, try them now; oh they are fixed; can me and my partner get a photo with your car?").

In the context of US roads, it's an extremely rare specimen which by itself makes it interesting.

But even beyond that, lightweight, mid front engine, rwd, turbo variants, this is the stuff of proper race cars. Anything Colin Chapman would approve of is automatically interesting.

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