Quote:
Originally Posted by evolutionmovement
The reason for the very sudden shift to small cars was the rapid rise in gasoline costs. Just like the other rare times Americans have shifted away from large vehicles.
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Understand that I'm not talking about the events of the last year, but about the trend of the last half century, since the first VW Beetles came to this country. Take a look at some of the standard cars from that era, like the '59 Chevy or Ford Galaxie. They make the typical SUV look like a miracle of efficiency by comparison: sheet metal that overhangs the tires by half a foot, engine compartments that you could climb into - with the engine still in them! - trunks big enough to carry all the corpses from a mass murder...
Cost isn't really an issue, either. Sure, the imports can produce any given model cheaper (that's one reason they had some success moving into the midsize & SUV segments that Detroit created), but most people who are primarily concerned with price buy used cars. The upscale side of the import/smaller car market - the Lexus/BMW/Porsche segment - manages to sell smaller cars at MSRPs well above those of Detroit's larger products. Nor have most of those smaller but expensive models offered outstanding fuel economy as a selling point.
Of course there's a market segment that does want big cars, and another one that buys what advertising makes popular - the commercials showing X-model SUV driving through attractive scenery probably sell the idea of the scenery more than the particular vehicle - but they're far from being the whole market. The only reasonable conclusion from the evidence is that a lot of Americans do in fact want smaller cars, because in spite of all the SUV advertising, that's what they actually buy & drive.