Remember when the old version of TopGear, which featured none other than Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond, consistently made fun of the three-wheeled Reliant Robin?
It was a car (more or less) that, admittedly, was asking for some trouble, with its single front wheel, so the British TV car show made the most of it by flipping many of them on their side, sometimes when you least expected it.
But the modern Citroen Ami has the luxury of four wheels and a low center of gravity, courtesy of its floor-mounted 5.5 kilowatt-hours battery pack. So in theory, it should be a lot more stable than the old UK-made three-wheeler, but as the videos embedded in this article show, it too can take a hit when pushed hard.
Measuring in at just 7.9 feet (2.41 meters) long and 4.6 ft (1.39 m) wide, the little French microcar apparently had a wannabe racing driver at the wheel, who wanted to take on the famous Grand Hotel hairpin that’s part of the Monaco Formula 1 Grand Prix.
And while the uphill attempt was incident-free, the second, downhill try was the one that put the Ami on its side, after the tiny wheels struggled for grip and eventually caught some air. The Citroen smashed into the sidewalk poles and no pedestrians were hurt, but it’s unclear what happened to the driver, although considering the relatively low speed this happened at, we’re hoping for zero injuries in this case.
The Grand Hotel hairpin is one of the slowest corners of the Monaco Grand Prix, with F1 cars sometimes slowing down to just 30 miles per hour (48 kilometers per hour), so it’s no wonder a cube-shaped vehicle like the Citroen Ami went on its side because it was pushed too hard here.
And in case you were wondering why didn’t the electronic nannies stop this crash from happening, well, there aren’t any: the French microcar doesn’t have traction control, ABS, and airbags, and it’s legal because it’s classified as a quadricycle in most of Europe.
As always, check out the video and head over to the comments section below to let us know what you think.
