When some of us were children in the ’90s, it was common for small cars to be sold with engines that made fewer than 100 horsepower. Remember the Ford Aspire and its 63-horsepower 1.3-liter four-cylinder engine? Or how about the Geo Metro, with just three cylinders and 55 hp? In the early part of the decade, you could buy a Yugo with, again, 55 hp from a 1.1-liter carbureted engine.
The days of sub-100-hp engines are over, right? The answer is no. Daily Rev recently discovered the 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine quietly doing its thing in the 2025 Toyota Corolla Hybrid is producing only 96 horsepower. Yes, paired with the car’s hybrid components, the whole powertrain produces a combined 138 hp, but the gas engine itself fails to crack triple digits. The good news is that its fuel efficiency is off the charts at 50 miles per gallon combined.
What’s more is that we had almost exited the era of sub-100-hp cars entirely with the death of the Mitsubishi Mirage. Sales of that econobox and its 78-hp 1.2-liter three-cylinder engine ended with the 2024 model. Thanks to Toyota, though, we’re still buying cars in the 21st century with engines that make less than 100 hp.
Why We Love Our Weak Engines
When fuel economy is the top priority, not much can help achieve that goal quicker than a weak engine. The aforementioned Geo Metro with 55 hp was officially rated at 41 mpg combined back in 1990, though owners will tell you it was even more fuel efficient on the road. Weaker engines also tend to be smaller, both in size and weight, which further aids fuel efficiency.
Fun Fact
The least powerful four-wheeled vehicle that could be considered a “car” was probably the 1964 Peel P50, a comically small conveyance with a 0.50-liter engine producing 4.2 horsepower.
The days of tiny subcompact cars running around with rubber-band engines are over, though. The Mirage was the last of a dying breed here in the U.S. The market now demands a higher level of safety equipment, convenience features, and performance that adds a considerable amount of size and weight to cars. Thus, the Corolla Hybrid and its ilk are ushering in a new era of weak gas engines paired with hybrid systems to form a powertrain with enough grunt to move a modern car around with all this extra stuff.
Other automakers are doing the same thing. The Hyundai Elantra Hybrid and Kia Niro Hybrid/PHEV both have a 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine that makes only 104 hp, for instance. The total combined rating with their electric motors helping along is 139 hp. The end result is fantastic fuel economy: the 2025 Elantra Hybrid is also rated at up to 50 mpg combined.
TopSpeed’s Take
While it’s true we’re currently in the midst of another Horsepower War that is regularly producing cars with more than 1,000 horsepower, it appears the other end of the spectrum has stubbornly refused to budge. Thanks to the advent of hybrid technology, underpowered engines with fewer than 100 hp can happily live on beneath the hoods of fuel misers where performance is not a priority.
Small engines can be just as interesting as big and powerful ones, if we’re honest with ourselves. In some cases, they’re part of a holistic system that relies on weight saving, aerodynamics, specific gearing, and more to create an ultra-efficient vehicle. Such is the case with the Corolla Hybrid with its 50-mpg combined fuel economy rating, a figure that not long ago could only be found in its overachieving, more expensive, and highly specialized sibling, the Prius. The 2025 Corolla Hybrid, meanwhile, has a starting price of just $23,825, which is due in part to the record-setting weakest engine that helps power it.
Read the full article here