Does anyone else think ...

[messerschmitt owner]

... modern cars are getting too big!

 

 

[forddeliveryboy]

Definitely too wide, defintely too heavy. A Honda Jazz parked next to my 124 estate a few years ago dwarfed it. Cars have become more box-like in shape - the maximum air for the minimum metal, helping profit. They've also become bloody ugly, to my eyes. Motor car engineering and design has also got lazy, now computers do it all. Of course they don't, and leave the owner feeling short-changed.

 

Cars are for the world market rather than Lt Col Sword-Dangling (Rtd) in Chipping Bumberry and the B4035. So big Germans at 240kph on uber-smooth autobahnen or 10 Afghan farmers* in a pickup driving up a 100 mile long pass at speed.

 

[messerschmitt owner]

looking at the Rangie, I reckoned, deflate the tyres on the Fiat, drive the Rangie up to a loading bay and I could load the Fiat in the back!!!!!

[michael1703]

Sit in a car,hold both hands out in front of you

 

Can you touch the windscreen? If the answer is yes, you are in an old car, if the answers no, you are in an Ncap euro box

 

They are bigger to prevent occupants from death, therefore everyone drives like a monkeyflange with no concern as they are protected in their little bubble

[dollywobbler]

Holding onto the top of the steering wheel, extend your fingers. Can you touch the windscreen? If so, you're in a 2CV. Or possibly a Porsche 911.

[richardmorris]

If you can sit in a car and touch the windscreen with your forehead you're in a 2CV.

[forddeliveryboy]

If you can sit in a car and touch the windscreen with your forehead you're in a 2CV.

 

Or a virgin CX pilot, who forgot his seatbelt.

[richardmorris]

My first CX test drive was a prestige - was happily driving along until the owner said, no turn right here - I stamped on the brakes and the world stopped !!

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Sit in a car ,grip the steering wheel. If your knuckles get wedged between the wheel and the screen ,you are in an XJ-S.

[michael1703]

If you can punch the windscreen every time you change gear you are driving a bedford ca

[bub2006]

I didn't have to fully extend my finger while holding the steering wheel to touch the windscreen in the robin. Only car i know where the passenger foot well was half the width of the drivers side!

[forddeliveryboy]

My first CX test drive was a prestige - was happily driving along until the owner said, no turn right here - I stamped on the brakes and the world stopped !!

 

Once damaged the diff bearings on a GSA when encountering a tractor on the A1 in deep dusk without any lights on. Admittedly I was going fast as one does in real Citroens, but few cars - if any - would have stopped like that one did. There was nowhere to go other than a nasty ditch, the back of the tractor or oncoming traffic. Effing farmers, a law unto themselves and seemingly never prosecuted for highly dangerous road antics.

[Richard]

Can you touch the windscreen? If the answer is yes, you are in an old car, if the answers no, you are in an Ncap euro box

 

You can't touch the windscreen in a SAAB 99 or 900

[forddeliveryboy]

You can't touch the windscreen in a SAAB 99 or 900

 

Unless you're on the bonnet, doing your duty.

[Split_Pin]

Or a Renault Espace MK1.

[Alexg]

Holding onto the top of the steering wheel, extend your fingers. Can you touch the windscreen? If so, you're in a 2CV. Or possibly a Porsche 911.

...or you're Pat Jennings

[Junkman]

Peugeot 405
 
L 4,408 mm  W 1,716 mm  H 1,390 mm Weight 1,020 kg - 1,430 kg
 
Peugeot 508
 
L 4,792 mm W 1,853 mm H 1,456 mm Weight 1,430 kg - 1,710 kg

 

I don't think, I compare.
 

 

Oh, and
 
1958 Chevrolet Impala
 
L 5,311 mm W 1,973 mm Weight 1,570 kg

1976 Chevrolet Impala

L 5,662 mm W 2,020 mm Weight 1,975 kg

1977 Chevrolet Impala

 

L 5,387 mm W 1,918 mm Weight 1,718 kg

 

2014 Chevrolet Impala

 

L 5,113 mm W 1,854 mm Weight 1,793 kg

 

So dimension-wise, it is actually possible to return to sanity, weight-wise, it's gleefully 1970s obesity.

 

It's the weight of the newfangled tosh that annoys me most.

All the progress in engine efficiency is offset by adding pure, unadulterated fat.

Install a 2014 Chevy engine in a 1958 Impala, and you have your 50 mpg car.

Well, you get my drift.

 

Also, compare the width of a new Chevy with that of a new Peugeot, and you'll realise what is wrong here.

 

 

 

 

[Partridge]

It's the newfangled tosh that's putting 05 reg cars in scrapyards...

[Junkman]

^^

That.

 

Dare I say "Scrappage Scheme" in this context?

We are only beginning to feel the impact it made.

Not the most shifty banger racer can ever match that crime.

I want to see heads roll. Dust off the guillotine.

[rml2345]

After I lost the 740 and was given a Disastra rent-a-wreck I did the comparison and was shocked to find it bigger in almost every dimension and a damn site heavier. Parking the vanilla breeze block beside new things also makes it look teeny but none of them have the same interior space.

It seems pretty remarkable how many people can be talked into a massive car with a tiny interior on the understanding that it does 5mpg better than a MK3 Cavalier and won't* fold up if it falls off and collides with a tree because you were driving like a knob.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

According to an article in C&SC I've just read , the Jag F Type is 4 inches wider than a Mark10/420G.

[Cavcraft]

If you can drive a car that the (loose) Van Morrison CD sitting in the bit below the stereo comes out and you punch it into pieces as you change gear, you were in my 306 nailing it away from the lights

[Asimo]

 

At least Toyota tried. Needs smaller wheels / higher profile tyres IMHO but if their iQ was available with a proper

automatic I'd consider one for daily wife-moving duties.

[Rusty Pelican]

My E30 318 BMW is smaller than the new 1 series , i parked next to  Renault Laguna notchback the other day which was wider , longer and taller than my BMW , Also  i couldnt see past the new Fiat 500L in it waiting at a roundabout as it was fucking mahoovive .

Verdict , my E30 is tiny 

[Junkman]

At least Toyota tried. Needs smaller wheels / higher profile tyres IMHO but if their iQ was available with a proper

automatic I'd consider one for daily wife-moving duties.

What did they try? How to waste massively more raw materials, the same space, and the same amount of petrol (if not more), to ferry around maximally two people instead of five?

[Jon]

Here's a photo I've mercilessly stolen from an NZ forum I'm on:

 

 

 

The OP stated that despite being late for work, he managed to fit in to the only space left, since moderns were so massive. Thought I'd try and take a similar shot when I took out Mrs_Jon's 205 but I couldn't find anything to park near that wasn't from the 90's. FEEL MY PAIN........

 

 

[Bucketeer]

Apologies for pea-roasting an old spot.

[Angrydicky]

Why do all modern cars have to have ridiculously huge alloy wheels with rubber band-esque low profile tyres? I think they look silly.

[brickwall]

So they spend less on engineering handling. Tall wheels also raise the overall gearing to give you a nice cruising along feel at speed kinda like a racing bike..

 

Maybe.

[RobT]

A neighbour bought a white Peugeot 308 recently which sits outside my flat offending my eyes. She tried stuffing all the sprog paraphernalia in the boot earlier, but had to put the buggy on the back seat. Huge vehicle with tiny boot FTW!