T25 supermini car made from recycled plastic bottles

Clive was pushing his baby daughter past the vegetable counter when I bumped into him at the weekend. I didn't know he'd had a baby. "Yes," he said. "The baby was born in the car on the way to Kingston hospital. It was in the local papers."

Clive used to work at ICIS, and we both used make the daily trek from west to south London, until he saw the light and moved to work for another publisher with riverside offices five minutes from our respective homes.

 "Still driving the soft-top?" he asked. No, I told him, it came to an untimely end, and now I've embraced the need for downsized urban motoring.  Like Mma Ramotswe in the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, I am now a fan of tiny vehicles.

And so my eyes lit up when I read this article about the T25 in today's Sunday Times Ingear supplement. Designed by Gordon Murray, designer of the McLaren F1 Supercar, it's so tiny that you could park it end-on to the kerb "and because it is just over 4ft wide (8in less than a Smart), three T25 cars can legally park in a standard, single car-parking bay."

For the petchem angle, apart from its phenomenal fuel efficiency (leaving al l that precious crude for the petchem pool), it "has body panels made from recycled plastic bottles, which help to keep the car's weight down to 600 kg - 25% less than a Smart."