Unless you live smack in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the United States, chances are that you don’t much of an issue with parking your car at your home. In Europe, where people didn’t run for the ‘burbs, parking is more of an issue, especially in older parts of cities. And it keeps getting worse, as populations increase and cars become more obtainable.
This video is a bit old, from 2010, which in internet years is eighty, but it shows how an old man parks his narrow Fiat Panda in his narrow garage. What is really interesting, is watching him get out of his garage-parked Panda.
The art of parking a small car in a small garage
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I thought for certain that he had to have a hatchback to climb out of the back of the car once parked. However, his door solution is incredibly elegant, and I can just envision the guy going around to car lots measuring everything to pick the exact car he needed for his application.
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Plus he needs a car light enough to push back and forth by hand while getting through the door(s)!
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The height of the scratches on the door between the house and garage relative to the Panda’s door suggest that this is a process that required some experimentation to perfect.
I do admire his dedication, but my laziness would have won out and the car would have lived in the street. -
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And then I think back to my garage at my last place and at my current place and the acrobatics I go through to fit two motorcycles and a Jeep in small single car Bay Area garages and… Welp. I truly admire the back the car up with the door open portion of the dance. Honestly. I know my superior when I see him. -
That’s roughly what I feel like whenever I hear an American say how he finds something hard to park or how he doesn’t understand why Europeans drive such small cars. Hate to break it to you guys, but your continent is the most fool-proof place on Earth for driving.
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We still have a lot of fools and many of them drive large cars.
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Hilarious. And the house is perfect for the purpose. Glad it’s a flat garage or his car might run away before he can get the garage door closed. Minds me of my of my aunt and uncle, who bought a huge ’70s boat. They measured the car and the garage. Mounted an entry mat to the end wall of the garage. Had just about two inches of space, when the garage door was closed.
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Despite it being a flat, level garage floor, I’d still reach into the car & set the brake.
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As someone who used to park all 225 inches of a Buick Electra into a 23 foot long garage and still close the door behind it, I tip my hat.
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No matter how many times I’ve seen this it still cracks me up, I have a similar dilemma myself, most cheaper houses here in Dublin, even in the burbs, are “terraced houses” (one long row of joined houses), well at least the older ones, the newer ones are “Townhouse” style which are even worse, which means you don’t even get your own driveway/small gardern but lame shared parking. I specifically bought an end of terrace house which means that I have just enough room to get a normal sized car round the side, with the plan of building a garage/workshop in most of the back garden. The problem is in Ireland is that it’s cold and damp, and these older houses are poorly insulated, so I need to sort that, but internal/cavity insulation don’t seem to be options, so I’m left with external insulation as probably my only option, adding a few precious inches onto the outside, which narrows the gap. Could probably still get a car through, but it’s going to take a bit of creative thinking to save as much inches as possible.
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Maybe get REALLY creative and use the car itself as part of the external insulation? It’s coldest at night, when the car is parked right next to the house… 😉
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Funnily enough, not a million miles from my current thinking, considering putting a sloping roof from the boundary wall to the house and putting a door at each end, so it in itself becomes an outer enclosed space, a small parking garage, so that insulation is only needed on the upper part of that side of the house. Then still have a proper workshop type garage at the rear.
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