Maybe size really does matter

Feb 26, 2009

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Special to the Star

When you drive a hybrid car for the first time, the eeriest thing to get used to is the quiet. Stopped at a light, you finally have to accept that you haven't stalled. Pop in Simon and Garfunkel and enjoy the Sounds of Silence.

But as our favourite modes of transportation continue to evolve, there are far more obvious things we are going to have to adapt to. I read a bit recently musing that buyers are perhaps waiting for the new revolution of cars to get sexy. That somehow we are going to have our cake and eat it too – reduced dependence on oil, speed, comfort, reliability, affordability and sex.

While I don't think all of those things are mutually exclusive, I do believe it depends on who you're asking. We have been spoiled with massive vehicles and massive engines that we have purchased whether we needed them or not. And now, we are supposed to do an about face and get used to – no, get excited about – vehicles that would have fit in the trunk of our last purchase.

There is a ready market for the smaller vehicles. A friend of mine bought his university-going daughter a Pontiac Sunfire a few years back. Tears of joy glistened in her eyes – and it really was perfect. Another young woman I worked with once purchased her first car – a Hyundai Accent – and promptly fell in love with it. It was her pride and joy.

These cars are about the right size if we want to go about the business of saving the planet. But I wonder about the conundrum facing manufacturers. I'm reading articles about carmakers responsibly downsizing passenger vehicles next to ones about municipalities struggling with the growing need for larger ambulances to accommodate a population facing an obesity epidemic. We have two bottom lines duking it out here – and I know people who will never, ever buy a car that requires them to use the jaws of life to get out of on a daily basis.

My son is 6-foot-2 – and counting – and already bonks his head on the frame of our Intrepid. No matter how you look at it, many of us are getting larger at a time when our cars need to get smaller. At last year's auto show in Detroit, the Chinese company Changfeng introduced several cars that many journalists couldn't fit into. There was talk then of the implications of downsizing – and with cars heading one way while the population heads the other, you have to wonder just how far people will support the efforts of manufacturers with dollars and not just talk.

My father was a diehard "bigger is safer" hound; I admit it's taken a long time to break me of that mindset, and of all cars, it was the Mini that did it. While that car had no back seat to speak of, there was a tonne of leg room in the front.

Many manufacturers are maximizing available space by punching out the body lines. The Nissan Cube, Toyota's Scion xB, and Kia's Soul are all singing the "we will, we will box you" refrain. Hopefully, vehicles like the Honda Element and GM's HHR got us used to the idea of a boxy ideal.

Change is tough; radical change is even more difficult. When you get a goldfish, you float it in a bag in the tank until it is acclimated to the temperature of its new home. For the car buying public, I think we're going to need a little more time in the bag.

Lorraine Sommerfeld's column appears Thursdays on Wheels.ca

www.lorraineonline.ca

Toronto Star