Another day, another drag race. This one is a little different in that British publication Carwow organizes fights between three-wheeled vehicles facing each other in quarter-mile sprints.
We realize that three wheels don’t exactly equal a fast car – except maybe when you’re talking about the Vanderhall Venice Roadster or Polaris Slingshot. Then again, the two high-powered three-wheelers aren’t the main character of this race.
The first competitor was called the Regal, which was produced by the Reliant Motor Company in England from 1953 to 1973. The model in the video is the van version, which produced around 37 horsepower from its 848cc engine – the most powerful of them all. .
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Next to the Regal on the starting grid is the world’s smallest car, the Peel P50. It makes a measly 4.2 hp from its tiny 49cc engine. The Peel is so small, drivers in races barely fit in it.
On the right side of the Peel is a Tuktuk, a common sight in Thailand when we drove the Ford Ranger there last year. Seeing it in England is just weird.
Next to the Tuktuk is the Piaggio Ape, a classic-looking trike that looks better than it sounds. Both Tuktuk and Kera are as slow as Peel.
The last three-wheeler on the far right is the BMW Isetta, something we are more familiar with. We saw one revived last year and it hit 45 miles per hour (72 kilometers per hour), so we have high hopes for that one.
That said, you might think that this is a tight race between Regal and Isetta, but it’s not. To partially spoil the result, Regal won the race, completing the quarter mile in 22 seconds. Peel didn’t even finish the race as the chain kept coming loose on launch.
Given the numbers, the Regal actually averaged 41.6 mph (67 km/h) during the run. That’s impressive and much faster than the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 7… otherwise.
