The end of cool small cars
The end of cool small cars
The Taliban has fresher trucks than us. The Honda Fit is dead. U can’t find a sauced-out 2-door to save your life. How did we get here??
“Dope” lingo aside, I actually agree with the statements made in the article. I wish he would touch on the increasing safety standards and the like, but in general, yes. Cars are getting overall very, very large, and SUVs and Pickup Trucks are everywhere now, despite most people not needing them. I don’t pretend to know why, but it’s increasingly common.
I stood next to a 1980s Bronco II today and it's tiny! I knew SUVs had grown but not this much.
To be fair, the Bronco II is analogous to the current bronco sport; it was intended to be a compact SUV. The full size bronco was sold at the same time and was larger than the current gen two door Bronco.
Other model lines have definitely grown, though. My “full size” 95 Land Cruiser is significantly smaller than the current gen 4Runner, which was previously based on a mini truck platform.
Was this article written by a child?
Written by a bad AI most likely.
Yo this article was fire. I love the way they write. And yeah I pretty much agree with everything. Cars are just getting bigger, uglier, and most importantly, more expensive and less reliable in the long term. Only made for short term profits and not for you to actually use for many years.
I'm going to drive my fiesta st into the ground. The only comparable hot hatch left in the US is the GTI and even that is bigger in every demotion and about 700lbs heavier.
Fiesta STs are awesome. My first "enthusiast car" was a Focus ST, but I almost wish I went with a Fiesta ST instead. I noticed compared to other small-ish sports cars, Focuses are still pretty big. Roomy for sure, but I prefer smaller.
I've driven a few focus ST and they are great, but very noticeably larger with a lot more body roll. But they are also definitely more comfortable and faster on most tracks.
A Focus ST may be moderately big on the outside, but the cabin on my 2013 is fairly cramped. If someone tall is sitting in a front seat there is no leg room in the back seat.
What? Buy japanese cars.
Japanese cars are still much larger than they used to be. Check a modern civic, they’re pretty big.
Corolla ran up to me the other day and I mistook it for a Camry at first glance. Definitely getting bigger
Article mentions how several of those are no longer available, or just getting bigger like the American ones are.
All i want is an affordable plug in hybrid station wagon :(
My compact+ crossover Sorento has virtually the same footprint as my old first-gen Sienna minivan and half the maximum cargo space. (~75 cubic feet vs. ~130)
To be absolutely fair, adding AWD, higher ground clearance and the seats not being removable are a big factor in that loss of space but I’m still sad that safety/packaging, center console also makes for a smaller interior since if I wanted the packaging efficiency of a minivan in a similar footprint I’d have to track down a passenger Transit Connect (kinda) or deal with the full-size proportions the minivan has grown to since the mid-00’s. (add a few inches of width and 20-something inches of length, they’re all about full-size pickup wide now and I'm not too pleased about that)
Surely this is due to reduced demand tho? The article frames the issue as cynical ploy by the auto makers (who are for sure not to be trusted) to upsell the big units but at some point we still have choice.
I say that but at the end of the day you can only buy something that exists. I'm waiting for affordable mass produced velomobiles but it may be a long wait for one of the most efficient vehicles to become known and acceptable to people who are scared of change.
Automakers manipulate demand through marketing and lobbying. CAFE requirements made it hard to sell small cars, so auto makers marketed and sold bigger cars. Now everyone thinks they need a massive vehicle, but really it's just a trend.
I'm driving a new Suzuki jimny in Iceland right now and it's fucking awesome. It's not much bigger than my side by side atv. I wish it were available in Canada
Hatchback accent for life. Gonna upgrade to a veloster if I ever get around to it.
Are there even cool cars anymore? I feel like I haven't seen a car made in the last thirty-odd years that wasn't either an egg or a brick, as flavorless and devoid of any distinguishing character as mid-level vodka.
I mean I feel like the past decade has been mostly iffy, but… 30 years? Seriously?
I’ve definitely seen some cool looking cars post 1993.