You think a Mini cooper is small? Ha! A third of Japanese drivers buy kei ("light") cars, which are so compact, owners get a special permit to park free in crowded cities. Kei are 11 feet long, 6.6 feet tall and 4.9 feet wide-or less-and legally limited to 660cc's and 63 horsepower. (They're longer but narrower than Smart cars.) Until now, the vehicles were simply shrunken versions of bigger models. But Mitsubishi designed its new "i" model from scratch to make the safest, roomiest and most high-tech kei yet.

Maybe E.T. is in the back seat. I'm trying hard to keep such thoughts out of my mind, but the fact is there's a strange orange glow coming from the rear of the car I'm driving, visible whenever I glance in the rearview mirror. That, along with the high-pitched whine of the drive motor and the intermittent thump of a tiny compressor replenishing the brakes, is making a simple crosstown trip feel somewhat surreal.