...can be a bit of an embuggerance.
Thought I was hiring a ?medium? sized car on holiday (a Citroen Berlingo) but it seems to have morphed into something with SUV proportions and not really suited to the local roads.
Why can?t manufacturers just leave well alone when it comes to size? There seems to be a inexorable growth in size of all models over time.
Tim
Often claimed to be related to side impact protection. A lot of it is fashion, though, IMHO.
I have a narrow shared drive to my cottage, a Citroen CX estate fitted fine and a Scorpio went round if you were careful. Now I have to fold the mirrors on the Honda Jazz to clear.
It's far easier to get big cars though crash tests.
I bet you left the drive out in the rain and it's shrunk :-)
Given most cars still have about the same room (width) for passengers as ever, I often wonder about this.
And weight. The VW Golf for example - 900kg in the 80s to 1400kg today.
Chances are it does better MPG, though.
Not far off double, I'd guess - 50mpg. And 115bhp for these new 1L econ-engines seems routine - again, not far off double an 80s Golf per litre.
At least, according to the figures. I get around 30mpg whatever I drive ;-)
Our Toyota Alphard, an 8 seat minivan converted into a campervan, is smaller than my daily drive BMW 520d, ffs!
The red herring of car/ SUV width.
Our Outlander isn't that much wider than our Smart for Two. It looks much wider but if you check the measurements, there isn't much in it in real terms- under 6" (1.81m vs 1.663m)
Even a Ducato Van is only 1.87m wide so hardly that much wider than a Smart Car- even if it looks massive.
Perhaps some people just struggle knowing how big their vehicle is when driving etc.
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