Are we ready for minimalism?

[MazdaMatt]

I didn't realize that a new miata was actually a reasonably affordable car (20k msrp). However, for me, 20k is more than I spent on my ONLY car. If i were to own a miata, i'd also need a vehicle that can carry my camping gear or a cabinet when needed. I'd like to see a sub-$8,000, 2-seat, 60hp, 3-cyl turbo deisel with a "socially acceptable" aero design and weight under 1800lbs. Can't be that friggen tough. I love the 3-wheeled tandem concept, too!

[Figjam74]

Originally Posted by MazdaMatt

I didn't realize that a new miata was actually a reasonably affordable car (20k msrp). However, for me, 20k is more than I spent on my ONLY car. If i were to own a miata, i'd also need a vehicle that can carry my camping gear or a cabinet when needed. I'd like to see a sub-$8,000, 2-seat, 60hp, 3-cyl turbo deisel with a "socially acceptable" aero design and weight under 1800lbs. Can't be that friggen tough. I love the 3-wheeled tandem concept, too!

A small utility trailer will fulfill most of your 'trucking' needs.

[IndyIan]

Originally Posted by MazdaMatt

I didn't realize that a new miata was actually a reasonably affordable car (20k msrp). However, for me, 20k is more than I spent on my ONLY car. If i were to own a miata, i'd also need a vehicle that can carry my camping gear or a cabinet when needed. I'd like to see a sub-$8,000, 2-seat, 60hp, 3-cyl turbo deisel with a "socially acceptable" aero design and weight under 1800lbs. Can't be that friggen tough. I love the 3-wheeled tandem concept, too!

I am waiting for the same car too! It just seems like the major manufacturers know that for the average north american, logic, the ability to think for yourself, and an appreciation of function over form, are not common traits.

Its common knowledge that a 4x4 pickup needs to be 7000lb, have atleast a 5litre V8, and sit 3 feet higher than anything else on the road. Anything smaller is useless and no 'real' man would be seen in anything else...

I think so far the market would accept the expensive, inefficient vehicles offered here with out question, but now people are simply not buying them so full size pickups are down 40%. I wonder how long it will take to offer a fuel efficient pickup? A diesel Colarado perhaps, or does GM prefer to go out of business instead of offering something like that?

I also second the trailer idea, I've built most of my house using materials moved by an old boat trailer with sheet of plywood on it. 20' culverts, 240 cubic feet of insulation, no problem. A miata or any other small car will have no trouble pulling and stopping a 1000lb trailer, driven half intelligently.
Ian

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by MazdaMatt

I didn't realize that a new miata was actually a reasonably affordable car (20k msrp). However, for me, 20k is more than I spent on my ONLY car.

If you ask me, NO new car is affordable, no matter what it costs. You lose too much driving it off the dealer's lot. But wait a few years, and today's latest hot new car will be available used, at a fraction of the price. I paid about $8K for the 2000 Insight I've been driving for the last 5 years. Before that, I think about $3500 was the most I'd ever paid for a car. That was a CRX, which I drove for about 10 years. (And likely would be driving still, if it weren't for a bit of water flowing over the local freeway - going backwards down the road at about 60 mph is not good for your engine :-() I hauled a lot of stuff in that two-seater, everything from bales of insulation to an airplane engine to a 140 lb Akita.

Anyway, between the CRX and an '80s Toyota 4WD truck (they seem to run forever) I spent about a third the price of a new Miata, or about what your "socially acceptable" new two-seater would cost, and I could do about anything except ferry large numbers of passengers.

[JamesLaugesen]

Boy would I love to see "cars" like this on the road! Especially here in Aus.

Originally Posted by sickpuppy318

yeah, well i've seen three bike accidents, two died and one had his leg in the road. Don't think that more car isn't more safty...

If a car and a motorcycle collide, and the motorcyclist dies, which would we say is more dangerous? The car or the motorcycle?

When people can STILL manage to kill themselves in car accidents, while being protected by all the safety rubbish we have these days - Surely that is a frightening indication on how dangerous _we_ have become.
It's human/animal nature to seek a risk equilibrium, see 'risk compensation', which is receiving increasingly more support in ethology & psychology circles.

The general theory (relative to driving) goes that, regardless of the vehicle we're driving, we'll seek our personal "comfortable" risk level, by adjusting our behaviour accordingly, relative to our _perceived_ risk. So if we perceive that a situation is less risky than our comfortable risk level, we'll do something 'risky' to increase our perceived risk of the situation to our comfortable level, and vice-versa.
An argument goes, therefore, that by promoting vehicle safety and reducing the perceived risk associated with the vehicle, the driver is more inclined to drive in a more dangerous way to equilise their perceived risk level.

If we were convinced that everything was very dangerous (ignoring the concious effects of being distracted and nervous, for the sake of this theory haha), we'd drive much safer...

So an equally plausable argument could be that, motorbikes and ultra lightweight small commuter cars are actually safer than large cars.

That idea is also supported when you look at racing statistics, deaths of motorcycle racers vs car/truck racers, and also periods when regions have changed between left/right handed driving.

*end rant

[metromizer]

Originally Posted by MazdaMatt

The freeway is butt ugly and I just couldn't drive it. Obviously designed by an engineer

that is just about everyone's first impression of even the '08 'cartoon cars' like Focus, Aveo, Yaris, etc... Then I ask myself "what if gasoline cost $20/gallon... would a double-butt-ugly car be attractive then?" This is coming from a guy who questioned a coworker's sanity after he bought a Ford Think (gloryfied golf cart) 4 years ago, and installed photvoltaics on the roof of his home. Looks like he had it right afterall.

Originally Posted by MazdaMatt

For my DD, i WISH i had a small 2-seater... the deal is, can each household afford 2 2-seaters for commuting AND a full sized vehicle for taking the kids ot the cottage?

I think that's where we are headed. If only the maintainance and insurence were combined int o one 'do it all' vehicle.

I've been saying for years I need a 'transformer car' with a push of a button it converts to my immediate needs. Fuel sipping one seater Diesel for commuting, a big truck for towing, a sexy Italian 12 cylinder canyon carver for a Sunday outing (in 'Hello-officer-red' color, of course), and a 6 seat minivan for hauling kids and the dog. Maybe the fuel sipping commuter is made from oragami folded paper, so I fold it up and put it in the briefcase when I get to work. The bumpers would have sensors in them (like airbag sensors) that when touched, instantly turn my flimsy commuter car into an M1 Abrams tank, a couple nano-seconds into an accident!

Speaking of safety, I once read an interesting perspective back when as California was headed toward the mandatory seatbelt law (for you younger guys, yep, this USED to be an option at one time) Anyhow, the author stated he wished there were no seatbelts, totally dis-allowed and that no one had them. Me when on to say he wished the driver of every car's face was sticking out beyond his or her front bumper. IF that were the case, do you think accident rate would go up, or down? Faced with the obvious, he guessed down. I rode a motorcycle back then, I would have to agree.

Think about it though, what if EVERYONE drove a car made from paper mache' ? Line the hiway with foam rubber bumpers maybe, but no trucks or SUV's allowed... rain storms aside for a moment, the only other vehicle on the road was another low-mass vehicle similar to the one you were traveling in? How safe would it be, then?

[i_am_socket]

Check on Florida driving laws. Look at when they made seatbelt and turn signal usage mandatory.

When the lease on my Corolla was coming up, I was seriously considering getting a Yaris since I really only need a tiny little car to go to work and back. Then I considered the cost of getting one + insurance on a new car + hopefully having a couple kids in the back seat in a couple years and I figured I can buy out my car for less than the Yaris, the insurance will be less on a 3 year old car, and I'll have a bit more space in the back when I haul kids around.

I'd totally commute on a motorcycle if I was living in a different state, though.

[dcb]

FYI, liability insurance on my bike is like $60/Year.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by metromizer

that is just about everyone's first impression of even the '08 'cartoon cars' like Focus, Aveo, Yaris, etc... Then I ask myself "what if gasoline cost $20/gallon... would a double-butt-ugly car be attractive then?"

Beats me why a small, two-seater has to be ugly, even allowing for differences in taste. Look at some of the cars with really low Cda, for instance the Aptera or (going back a ways) the Lotus Europa: are they ugly?

On the other hand, is there anything much uglier than some of the current pickup & SUV designs, with grill & front end deliberately styled to resemble a penis? Bodies that look like they were sliced in half along a horizontal plane, and an extra foot of sheet metal inserted?

...he wished the driver of every car's face was sticking out beyond his or her front bumper.

That's the way I feel about motorcycle helmets. Used to listen to friends who'd go on about how they just didn't feel safe without a helmet. To which my reply was that if they felt safe, they didn't belong on a bike. Complete & total paranoia is the only sensible way to ride :-)

[IndyIan]

Originally Posted by dcb

FYI, liability insurance on my bike is like $60/Year.

So what is your total insurance cost? I looked into getting a 250 here but insurance would start at $800 and then go down fairly quickly to $600 after a couple years. The $$ didn't work out to make a motorbike worthwhile for me as I couldn't replace a vehicle with the motorbike, with 5 months of winter.
Ian