NARROW ESCAPE

Just us or is everything getting fatter these days? Well here comes the new Kia Picanto flying the flag for a leaner, simpler approach to modern life

- TOM FORD

It began as an idle conversation bout what ‘small’ means when applied to cars, but it ended with my torso wedged into Europe’s narrowest street (and possibly the world’s... it depends on whom you ask), with a French man laughing, making circular motions around his belly and pointing at my midriff. Certainly not something one expects on the usual Thursday. But to get to the latter, we must first address the former. And it began in London, with a little, sorry ‘small’, car.

The car in question is a Kia Picanto, and therefore undoubtedly at the bijou end of the automotive scale. The kind you can park immediately without parking sensors or fish eyed cameras, ending up adrift in a sea of clearance in even the most modest of spaces. It has space for multiple humans – just about – a boot, all the accoutrements of a larger vehicle, albeit one with a modest 77bhp and a five-speed manual gearbox. Which is less than some bicycles. This is the latest generation, sporting design cues from Kia’s more modern – and much larger – progeny, giving it the air of a kitten with overly large teeth. Cute, yes, but worrying. It works best in a city, scythes through the urban environment, plucking gaps from marginal leeway, laughing at width restrictors and those medieval car parks with spiralling ramps and alloy abusing kerbs. It’s... great.

Why is it so suited? Because life has got a bit... plump. Everything is bigger, fatter, extra. People, portions, places, prices, ambitions. The cult of go large. None more so than in the world of cars. Mid-sized SUVs the size of postcodes, large SUVs the size of counties, sports cars so wide they dwarf their ancestors with extra lard. Obesity as an epidemic, the UK’s average automotive silhouette morphed into a fatter, taller car with ground clearance cobwebbed from lack of use. A genuinely little car feels like a cheat code in town. There are reasons, of course.