Autonomous vehicle (AV) technology has the potential to revolutionize the transportation and logistics industry, making it more efficient and safer. However, testing such technologies is often limited by time, space, and cost constraints. Therefore, in recent years, several initiatives have emerged to test autonomous software and hardware on scaled vehicles. In order to provide guidance for future research, this systematic literature review was conducted to provide an overview of the literature surrounding small-scale self-driving cars, summarizing the current autonomous platforms deployed and focusing on the hardware developments in this field. Through the use of databases such as Web of Science, Scopus, Springer Link, Wiley, ACM Digital Library, and the TRID, 38 eligible studies that present small-scale testing of self-driving cars were identified and reviewed. The results indicated that publications on the topic are relatively new, with only the last four years showing an increase in the number of publications. Additionally, most papers only presented preliminary results, highlighting the potential for further research and development in the field. Research papers predominantly focused on software rather than hardware.