Andrea Marazzi spent nearly a year sanding, cutting and rewelding a scrapped 1993 Fiat Panda down to just 50.2 centimeters (19.76 inches) wide — narrow enough that Guinness World Records confirmed it this month as the narrowest drivable car ever built.
The 30-year-old mechanic works at his family's car-dismantling yard, Autodemolizione Marazzi, in Bagnolo Cremasco, a small town near Crema in northern Italy. He pulled the donor Panda from his own scrapyard and rebuilt it around a single, centered driver's seat, using his own torso as a fitting guide. The result is so slim that a driver's shoulders extend past the bodywork, so the windows stay down by design, not by choice.
An Engine Swap, Out of Necessity
The original petrol engine never had a chance of fitting inside the narrowed shell, so Marazzi replaced it with a small electric motor salvaged from a scooter, paired with a golf-cart steering wheel and a hand-operated brake lever. He told autoevolution that the finished car is "fully functional" and "surprisingly stable," and that it does everything a normal car does, "albeit slower." By his own count, 99% of the components trace back to the original Panda.
Guinness announced the title on September 10 as one of the headline entries in its newly released Guinness World Records 2027 book, alongside records for the most tattooed living person and the tallest living horse. The category is distinct from the organization's separate "smallest roadworthy car" record, a low, compact vehicle built by an American, Austin Coulson, in 2012 — Marazzi's Panda is a full-size car narrowed sideways, not a miniature one.
Marazzi has been showing the car at Italian car meets for years; the Guinness certification now gives the build an official title to match its internet fame. Video of the car threading through narrow Italian streets, with its driver's shoulders poking past the doors, has circulated widely since the record was confirmed, reviving interest in a project Marazzi began almost entirely with parts already sitting in his family's yard.
