Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesqf
The Corvette is quite a bit lower, though: ~49 inches vs 55.4 for the Mini. It certainly is a fairly small car: perhaps not as small as the Mini, but much smaller than say a Chevy Suburban.
Suburban: 222.4 x 76.8 inches
Corvette: 174.6 x 49.1
Mini: 146.6 x 55.4
And unlike the Mini, the Corvette is a two-seater. But pick another car if you like, say the Porsche 911 series, or the Miata.
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Large, inexpensive... the Fusion at $20k is not large enough?
The Corvette is not a small car. The Corvette is a six-foot wide grand tourer with a motor big enough to power a small city... with the stock alternator and 12v socket.
Calling it a small car is like calling a Bentley Continental a subcompact. You can manipulate the numbers to agree with you, but at the end of the day, they're not small cars. They're big toys.
Why are we talking about boutique sports cars in a thread about high mpg cars, again? About the only car in this discussion that even comes close to meeting the subject of the thread is the Miata... and that's an excellent example of "niche"... in that every car that's competed in the Miata's small but relatively profitable niche over the past few years (MR-S, Solstice/Sky) has died out, leaving the Miata to soldier alone. The Toyota 86 may make a good go of it, these still aren't the cars we're looking for.
The MINI, again, is the closest, but it sells more on coolness than practicality. And you can't rely on that to sell mass transport, because the moment a car becomes a
useful appliance rather than just a toy (ergo: Fit, Mazda2, Fiesta), no amount of fancy styling will convince people it's as cool as a MINI. As MINI found out itself with the Clubman.
Here's an informative infographic:
Having driven the entire MINI line-up... I can say that the Clubman is the one MINI that actually makes sense from a practical point of view. The Cooper is tiny. The back seat is pathetic and cargo space is small compared to many old school subcompacts and non-existent compared to the compacts it's priced against. The Clubman gives you actual rear legroom, actual trunk space, and the same fuel economy. And it just happens to drive as well as the MINI... even better, in my opinion... an opinion that, surprisingly, is shared by the local brand manager. And it's selling worse than ever.
The Countryman, on the other hand, has big space compared to other MINIs, but fuel economy isn't all that great (tall car, bluff front end, small motor) given the hardware, ground clearance and off-roadability aren't that great, despite the looks, and you can certainly buy much more practical cars for the price. It doesn't drive anywhere near as well as a MINI, and the chassis rigidity of this Austrian-made car is disappointing, especially in white.... which just happened to be the color I drove.
But the Countryman maintains the spirit that the Clubman did not: To wit: "I don't care if it's impractical, it's darn cute." Which makes it a runaway success.
Works for niche cars... won't work for everyone else. To try and market a practical, economical mass market car relying on the irrational impulses and desires of the buyers would be like trying to emulate the Cadillac Escalade's success with the Lincoln Navigator. Or to use TV and movie placements to make your products "hip". Doesn't matter how many Transformers movies it's been in... the Chevrolet Spark (more interior volume than a MINI hardtop, much better mpg) just doesn't reach the level of "hipness" that MINI does just by being "MINI".
And right now, MINI sales are stagnating. Without the Countryman, their market share would be on the decline. And the Countryman just happens to be the biggest MINI that they've ever made. The unrelenting upward march of progress? Unfortunately.