A little history about North American small cars

There was a nice article in yesterday's Globe & Mail paper about the (mostly failed) attempt of U.S. automakers to enter the small car market in the early 1960's. [article link] A quote from an auto journalist at the time still rings true today; it's taken a recession and high gasoline prices to start to change buying habits, and only slightly.

"Personally I go along with the thinking that America is basically a big-car country with big-car needs. I feel that unless we have a depression of major size or 60 cents a gallon gasoline, the so-called big cars will still grab off 80 per cent of the market.”
-- Tom McCahill, Modern Mechanix (circa 1960)

A tumultuous year: Small never looked so good!

Due to other ventures, this blog has languished to the bottom of my priority list. Perhaps it's fitting given the tumultuous year it has been in the auto business; just keeping up-to-date on the drama of the American Big Three (GM, Chrysler, Ford) would be a challenge, rendering some posts obsolete within days (case in point: the small Pontiac G3: discontinued shortly after being released). After all, this blog is not about mergers, buy-outs, bail-outs, bankruptcies or subsidies: it's about small cars.

Overall, the economic downturn has been good for "small", and not only for cars, but as a general philosophy of frugality, of living more simply. In the car sector, the recession has accomplished what $150 USD/barrel oil, and the resulting high gasoline prices, last year couldn't: people are now actually buying small cars in droves. In Canada, DesRosiers Automotive Consultants showed that by the end of 2008 the market share of sub-compact cars reached 8.7% (of total automobile sales), double the previous year's numbers. It's not a stretch to think that for 2009 the market share will be well into the teens. In the United States, the popular Cash-for-Clunkers program (which was just extended by the U.S. Senate yesterday evening) has propelled the small-ish Ford Focus to a top seller. In the U.K., which has their own scrappage program, it's a small car (the Ford Fiesta) leading the pack as the top car being chosen after trade-ins.

These are exciting times for small car enthusiasts. If this was 1969 again, Honda might have thought twice before dropping the idea of the selling the small 600 here in North America. This time around, I hope companies stop heeding the old stereotypes that imply that we need bulkier, faster, gas guzzlers just because we live on this side of of the world. Let's hope that we the consumers are the ones who are allowed to make a choice from the full spectrum of products, including the small cars available in the rest of the world.

Which ones am I anxiously waiting to test drive? The TH!NK city (a small electric car), the Fiat 500 (just awarded the title of "Best City Car" for 2009 in the U.K.) and the Toyota iQ (a tiny car that's much sexier than the Smart car). Hurry up and bring them over to this side of the Atlantic!

GM is to car as Vespa to scooter?

Wrong! It turns out that Piaggio, the makers of the massively popular Vespa line of scooters, once made a car, a tiny microcar to be exact. The Vespa 400 (circa 1957-1960). And "micro" is almost an exaggeration; we're talking a 392cc engine (most motorcycles have larger engines; even Piaggo make some scooters these days that are 500cc), rear wheel drive convertible. And if you happen to live near Toronto, one is available for purchase right now! These are extremely rare, and those still around rarely go for sale.

Who killed the electric car?

This is not really about small cars (however, a common thread among small autos is fuel efficiency), but nevertheless interesting. I just watched the recently released documentary "Who killed the electric car?"; I stumbled upon it on Google Video here [2007.12 edit: updated link, but it may go down again due to copyright issues]. There seems to be an agenda in the narrative, but it was filled with interesting historical aspects.

But wait! Is the electric car really dead? Here's one that you can actually buy, right now (well, assuming you live in Europe), and it's solar to boot! The Venturi Eclectic.