As Americans, we\u2019re used to our performance cars coming in relatively large packages\u2014 Tire-smoking muscle cars with big-block engines that proved there really was no substitute for cubic inches and no replacement for displacement. Or was there? The cars on this list are all diminutive, yet an off-the-chart power to weight ratio means they have performance to match far bigger supercars.<\/p>\n

2005-? Lotus Elise<\/strong>: No list of great pocket rockets would be complete without a Lotus. Lotus Founder Colin Chapman\u2019s mantra was speed through extremely light weight. The Elise\u2019s sub-2,000-pound weight, combined with a 189 hp Toyota-sourced engine, made it good for 0-60 in about 4.7 seconds. The Elise\u2019s super sharp handling and communicative steering make it one of the best driver\u2019s cars on the planet, assuming you can fit in it.<\/p>\n

$\"1966$
1966 Griffith 400 (photo courtesy of Profdeuce)<\/p><\/div>\n
1983-86 Renault R5 Turbo<\/strong>: To the extent that Americans are familiar with this car, it is because of the car that it is based on, the underachieving little hatchback sold here as the Renault Le Car. And while that was a front-engine, front-wheel-drive economy car, the\u00a0R5 turbo<\/a>\u00a0(the real purpose of which was to compete for the World Rally Championship) had its engine moved to the mid position driving the rear wheels. It was perhaps the only car to ever be sold in both of these configurations. With a tiny turbocharged 1.3-liter engine, the R5 turbo was capable of performance that would surprise many unwary Porsche 911 owners. They were never officially sold in the U.S. but a good number of them were privately imported and federalized.<\/p>\n
$\"Renault$
Renault R5 Turbo (photo courtesy of Contri)<\/p><\/div>\n
1996-99 Panoz AIV Roadster<\/strong>: England has a long history of a sports car cottage industry that produced cars like Morgan, Marcos, Ginetta and many more that are even more obscure. America doesn\u2019t have quite that history, but that didn\u2019t stop Georgian Dan Panoz from producing the tiny cycle fender\u00a0AIV Roadster<\/a>\u00a0without a top, side windows or radio, but with a 32-valve, 4.6-liter\u00a0 Ford SVT Cobra<\/a>\u00a0V-8. AIV stood for \u201caluminum intensive vehicle,\u201d and the car\u2019s diminutive size combined with the use of that lightweight metal made for a fiercely fast but tiny car. The 176 produced are highly prized by collectors.<\/p>\n
$\"Panoz$
Panoz Roadster (photo courtesy of Nate Grigg)<\/p><\/div>\n
This article has been reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder, Hagerty. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Click here for more\u00a0<\/i>classic car stories<\/i><\/a>\u00a0from Hagerty.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":null,"protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":5408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cos_headline_score":0,"cos_seo_score":0,"cos_headline_text":"","cos_headline_has_been_analyzed":false,"cos_last_analyzed_headline":[],"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[136],"tags":[1360,1371,21,338,1359,1374,1376,13,1356,1373,1372,1353,1357,1358,593,1231,885,1132,867,1354,1363,1127,1352,1368,1370,1369,1377,1378,73,608,1367,1362,1364,1365,1366,622,148,1375,1355,1361],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Lotus-Elise.jpg?fit=859%2C382&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9nnZN-1p9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5403"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5403"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5414,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5403\/revisions\/5414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pomonaswapmeet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}