Cars are berkeleying huge.

I parked next to a new "compact" Dodge Dart today. I swear it was the same size (or a hair bigger) than my 300sd.

...and they can't figure out how to make cars more efficient?

Safety nannies are a motherberkeleyer.... And have you checked out the wide loads at fatburger lately? You ain't packin them heifers in a smart car.

We are a nation of fat asses. Besides, those cars aren't fat, they're big boned.

no their big assed! dinosaurs were big boned! put the fork down!

-Dennis Leary.

I'm going to make a habit of taking pictures of the Ranger next to "compact cars". Results to come...

I should have taken a picture of my WRX next to a MINI Countryman. It made the Subie look tiny!

For me, it was a Honda Fit next to an XJ Cherokee. Oh, and those "generations" photos the Germans love to take, where they park a 2002 next to a bunch of three series cars.

Huge outside, tiny inside.

That's my biggest issue with American performance cars. Challenger, Camaro, Mustang, Charger, Corvette etc......all porkers. Not just size but the weight too. Ya I know, the Asians and Europeans aren't much better.

Watching the World Cup down in Brazil, I see a lot of VW ads.. they are hyping how the GTi is bigger

RoughandReady wrote: I parked next to a new "compact" Dodge Dart today. I swear it was the same size (or a hair bigger) than my 300sd. ...and they can't figure out how to make cars more efficient?

The efficiency regulations are based on vehicle footprint, so often its easier to make a car longer/wider (and thus have a lower CAFE target) than it is to make it more efficient.

A friend was bragging to me a while back about how his 1985 Oldmobile was a huge tank that would tear through a "modern" car in an accident. He shut up in a hurry when I showed him some numbers (my midsize Passat weighed 600 lbs more than his V-8 sedan).

Cars are so much safer these days but the penalty is definately added girth.

Not only are they larger dimensionally, but they are much denser. I had a '69 newport 'vert that was a boat, 19 feet long, yet it weighed less than 2 tons.

Smaller inside? Depends. My wife's parents just bought a new Malibu and it seats four adults comfortably, with a massive trunk. And it gets 35 mpg on the highway, about 27 in mixed driving.

The wife's '59 Invicta is still bigger than my Charger.

I've certainly noticed that cars have gotten smaller inside. My mother's CX-7 is an enormous bloated cow on the outside and is a BMW E30 on the inside.

Are cars really that much safer (actual, not rhetorical question)?

I remember seeing last year, that the Camry and the Prius (at least those were the models mentioned) had safety features tailored to the crash test. When they gave it an angled impact (like a real world crash), they did as well as a VW beetle.

I would lean toward creature comforts and safety making cars heavier, along with a generally bloating size. A 90's Volvo 240 wagon has an air bag, crumple zones, ABS, huge steel beams in the doors, etc. It was a big heavy car, and weighed like 3 grand. A new XC70 (which I would say fills the slot of the 240 in the Volvo line up) weights like 4200 lbs.

Seems to me like people expect too much (regarless of how many cheeseburgers they eat). Everyone needs AWD, heated seats, Super auto climate control, Instafacetweet on their dash, etc.

The new Dart, just for an example, should have 500 lbs cut from it, a 1.0 L engine that mankes 100 hp, and an 8 speed (or whatever) gearbox. I've daily driven many heavy (by the old standard) cars with ~100 hp or less, and have honestly never missed the excess power.

While cars seem huge today, look at the specs on these intermediate wagons (not even FULL SIZE wagons or cars...) from '73:

Check the weights. 4500-4760 lbs. About where similar SUVs are today. The Hornet is actually a compact wagon and it weighs 3350, about where a compact wagon would be today.

SOME cars have definitely gotten larger, such as my '14 MINI, here parked next to an original...

I noticed this very thing when I parked the Elantra beside the Zombichero, the Hyundai is a good 4" taller and as wide

FWIW, even sportbikes are getting bigger/longer/heavier......

^Yes, there was a time when cars were really berkeleying huge. The age of American excess. Fuel is dirt cheap, no one worries about the environment, America is the tits and no one can touch us (maybe the last one isn't true in '73, but it seems to be a leftover attitude from the 50s).

The whole problem, in my eyes, is that this totally bullE36 M3 attitude is still lingering. Gas is 3.70 in the city right now, the planet is not coping with us so well, and America is not the one true king anymore. But the attitude lingers. "I DESERVE an Escalade because I EARNED it." Those times are dead and people need to get real on what they actually need and what they actually use. It becomes a lame "we're all in this together situation," as much as I don't really want to participate.

RoughandReady wrote: Are cars really that much safer (actual, not rhetorical question)? *snip;* Seems to me like people expect too much (regarless of how many cheeseburgers they eat). Everyone needs AWD, heated seats, Super auto climate control, Instafacetweet on their dash, etc. The new Dart, just for an example, should have 500 lbs cut from it, a 1.0 L engine that mankes 100 hp, and an 8 speed (or whatever) gearbox. I've daily driven many heavy (by the old standard) cars with ~100 hp or less, and have honestly never missed the excess power.

I am pretty sure that of all forums, I had to bitch someone out for complaining a new car (or an old metro, I forget) on grm was dangerous to merge with. A metro is not dangerous to merge with and besides the miragd I think all modern cars are faster than it

RoughandReady wrote: I've certainly noticed that cars have gotten smaller inside. My mother's CX-7 is an enormous bloated cow on the outside and is a BMW E30 on the inside.

Thats not fair to the e30. You can fit 2 sets of tires, an air tank, a big tool box, luggage, lunch, helmets and other driver gear, a whole bunch of spare parts, a 6 cd changer in the trunk, and a passenger in an e30 which is substantially smaller than the smallest car that BMW sells now.

RoughandReady wrote: Are cars really that much safer (actual, not rhetorical question)?

Obligatory video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joMK1WZjP7g

Yes they are safer.

Following this post will be several claiming that the video is some sort of propaganda/conspiracy.

I really want one of those monster 2 doors from the early seventies. I think Chrysler did them better than anyone but would take any of them.

Air ride, turbo Diesel and just cruise that E36 M3 from one side of the country to the other and back again.

I like creature comforts.

Where is that picture of the new Skyline lined up for a track day, surrounded by similar cars of earlier years?

I did not catch a photo but I once had my Volvo 850 wagon (boxy mid-sized car) parked next to a Sentra/Versa and the Volvo looked low, sporty and sleek.