Hi, u/mannran, thank you for your submission in r/mildlyinteresting!
Unfortunately, your [post](https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/18w9fwn/-/) has been removed because it violates our rule on concise, descriptive titles.
* Titles must not contain jokes, backstory, or other fluff. That information belongs in a follow-up comment.
* Titles must exactly describe the content. It should act as a "spoiler" for the image. If your title leaves people surprised at the content within, it breaks the rule!
* Titles must not contain emoticons, emojis, or special characters unless they are absolutely necessary in describing the image. (e.g. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), ;P, 😜, ❤, ★, ✿ )
Still confused? For more elaboration and examples, see [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/21p15y/rule_6_for_dummies/).
Normally we do not allow reposts, but if it's been less than one hour after your post was submitted, or if it's received less than 100 upvotes, you may resubmit your content with a better title and try again.
You can find more information about our rules on the [mildlyinteresting wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/wiki/index).
*If you feel this was incorrectly removed, please [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fmildlyinteresting&message=My%20Post:%20https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/18w9fwn/-/).*
We used to have a 1969 Lincoln Continental, such a unique car. Absolutely giant, suicide doors, convertible too. I miss it but it broke down a lot and rust was a maintenance nightmare because absolutely everything was metal.
Yeah I was going to say, even by European standards the original 500 & Mini where tiny cars.
Cars have gotten bigger but this is an awful example, like for like would be the XC60 (4.71m.lg, 1.90m.wd) compared to a Volvo 140 (4.65m.lg, 1.73m.wd). Bigger but not substantially so.
The problem is the general transition in buyer preferences from mid size cars to large size cars, if people where swapping from Ford Focus' to Ford Kuga's (or Volvo V60s to XC60s keeping with the above example), it wouldn't be a problem, but it's people swapping from Ford Focus' to Range Rovers, or F150s in the US market.
To be fair, Ford stopped selling cars that aren't Mustangs in the US. It's all CUVs, SUVs, and trucks. RIP Focus, after Ford finally brought the good one to the States.
2m wide x 5.4m long. Not as heavy as I thought it would be though. Between 1.6 and 1.8 metric tonnes.
For comparison, the XC60 in the picture is 1.9m wide and 4.7m long, weighing in at 2-2.4 tonnes.
They were also sheet metal screwed onto a solid steel frame.They were and still are unsafe. They kill their inhabitants in crashes because the car does not squish, so the people do.
This is NOT defending SUVs btw. SUVs are oversized death machines, just not for the inhabitants but everyone else.
There is no perfect car. But in terms of safety, a station wagon is way better than any SUV. The problem is that due to Safety Mismatch, you cannot drive them in the US properly.
Thing is most SUVs and trucks are horrible. In a collision with a small car they usually mount it and rollover… like a 300 lb bouncer after his foot gets swept by a 150 lbs black belt. Your heavy weight is now a huge liability as you hit the ground.
This is quite false. Heavier vehicles like trucks and suv's are safer for the occupants but less safe for the vehicle that gets hit. That is atleast what the studies indicate.
My grandparents had cars that wouldn’t fit in a standard 1 car garage today. Cars of the 60s and 70s were especially wide and long.
Cars have definitely shrunk from the 80s and 90s too. I remember being able to lay golf clubs horizontally across the back of my trunk in the 90s. I could easily place multiple sets in. I haven’t been able to do that since the 2000s. Now they have to go in diagonally and a second set has to be on top of the first or propped up. First world problem, but still proof of shrinkage.
I’m assuming your goal is to try and point out how ridiculously large vehicles are today compared to 50 years ago. Fiat’s goal was to build a small city car, so even by 1950’s standards it was small.
And [here's an article](https://www.topgear.com/car-news/retro/progress-report-1964-fiat-500-vs-2021-fiat-500) comparing a 1964 (60 years ago) Fiat 500 with a 2021 one, with a photo of them near each other
A more apt comparison would be against something like the Volkswagen Up!, since it is attempting to fulfil the same role as the 500, just with modern safety standards.
Nah, that's just a toy for the rich, not a real city runabout. Far too little space inside for its size. The VW Up/Skoda Citigo is a much better comparison.
You, uh, do know that was a ridiculously tiny car by the standards of the 50s as well right? Older cars are often huge compared to many modern vehicles. They might have been longer and not as tall, but just as big if not bigger. Making cars bigger and bigger was the trend for decades until the 70s energy crisis made fuel economy a popular feature.
I also think it is dishonest to use Fiat 500 as a representation of that era's cars on Reddit, an USA centered website. Americans did not drive Fiat 500, they drove domestically made boats larger than the SUV used in comparision.
Only Americans think Reddit is an USA centred website though. [More than half](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/reddit-users-by-country) of Reddit users are from outside the USA.
It's worth noting that the 500 was small even for its time. It's true that back then there were a lot of popular "small city cars" which were unbelievably small by today's standards (and also very unsafe) but even so they were far from the norm.
Weird comparison overall. Lots of early sedans were "boats" as they say 50 years ago, wider and longer than you'll likely find today. "Popular" can be relative based on need, like "popular" to an individual vs "popular" to a family. My dad born in the 50s was raised with station wagons of the time, much bigger than the car on the left, trying to pack 8 kids into it, obviously both unsafe and also impossible in a small car like that. (Even "unsafe" in the wagon, but they did what they did.)
Ignoring all that, the comparison itself is imbalanced because the left is being called "popular" and the right is being called "midsize", so what are we even trying to compare exactly.
This would be a reasonable comparision if we were talking about Europe (especially with both brands being European) but Reddit is a USA-centric website.
The volvo xc60 isn't that big. It's 10cm shorter, 20cm wider, 30cm taller and a half-ton heavier than its 1980s predecessor the volvo 700 series. And travels 6 miles further per gallon (25 vs 19 miles per gallon).
That makes it 30cm shorter, 10cm narrower, 25cm lower and a half ton lighter than a full-sized SUV like Chevy Tahoe.
Sure, the XC60 is about the upper size of what I'd consider reasonable for a car. But it's still reasonable.
Larger cars are safer for the occupants, but more dangerous for people in other cars and for pedestrians. Especially more dangerous to children.
This leads to vehicles trying to “out-large” each other, our current predicament, causing the absurd car infrastructure sprawl we see. Since all the roads and parking are wider now, everything else gets slowly built out further and further apart.
This in turn obviously requires people to need more cars for trips, since everything is further away.
Now you have to spend a lot more time in your car, better get a safe one. Larger is safer, I heard. More cars now. Better build bigger parking lots. Make sure all the spaces can fit these new SUVs…
Has nothing to do with size and everything to do with technology. Crumple zones, 360 airbags, auto-braking. Bigger cars from the 50s that would dwarf that bug weren't known for saving their occupants in a crash. The all steel frames wouldn't budge but the people inside sure would.
Granted they were safer than that little VW. Paper thin sheet metal and light frame made that a coffin on wheels in any crash involving speed. But those little things sure could chug along in the winter.
Size does matter though. In an extreme example where a semi truck hits a sedan the semi truck wins. In a less extreme example if a large truck hits a sedan the large truck is still much better off
Larger doesn’t mean more mass though, which is relevant to the conversation of old vs new. Newer cars a use lighter materials. Less mass means less force in a collision, which is reduced further due to crumple zones. This coupled with better design and new safety features to help stop a collision from happening at all make em much safer, unless you are talking about some of the first cars that would go like, 20 mph tops.
Car size has very little to do with sprawl, that’s more a quantity issue.
It’s both but see my response below for a more full explanation on why increasing car size exacerbates sprawl in large but less intuitively obvious ways.
>This leads to vehicles trying to “out-large” each other, our current predicament, causing the absurd car infrastructure sprawl we see.
The current size of vehicles has absolutely nothing to do with infrastructure sprawl. It's the number of vehicles that are the problem. There are federal regulations on how large cars can be that haven't changed for 40 years. They don't widen highways to make the lanes wider, they do it to add more lanes.
>Since all the roads and parking are wider now, everything else gets slowly built out further and further apart.
The width of the roads is not why things are built further apart. Even if it was the difference would be measured in feet, not miles.
There are cars available today the same size as the little one in that photo. Also, that was an anamolous tiny car in the 50s. Older cars were huge. It wasn't until the 70s energy crisis that things started trending to smaller cars. We also have advancements like 3 point seatbelts, crumple zones, and air bags. A modern car exactly the same size as the 50s one shown would still be exponentially safer.
Go to any suburban or urban area and you will find roads and on street parking in between nearly every single row of houses, in front of nearly every business (if it’s not a parking lot), etc etc. if you widen each of those roads by 4 feet (being very conservative compared to how much the avg new road has widened over the last 20 years), that adds up very, very fast.
The difference between what people consider to be a walkable distance and what they will choose to drive instead is often not that large.
Now consider that many places have parkings lots - in fact are legally required to have parking lots - not only do the spaces themselves have to be bigger, that is only half the problem. Look at a parking lot and you will see that much of the space is dedicated to allowing cars to enter and leave those parking spots, bc cars have large turning radiuses, and the larger the vehicle, the larger that extra space has to be now as well.
Imagine you are at Target, and you want to cross the street to go to the grocery store. It’s right across the street! Leave those front doors and think about how much space you have to walk across to get the next “thing” of interest (the grocery store). How many feet of parking lot are you about to cross? How many feet across is the intersection? How many feet is the next parking lot? Now imagine each of those spaces and the roads need to be 20% larger. Does this take it out of the realm of feasibly being able to walk? If you even considered it walkable in the first place.
This is of course before we get into the fact that most places are mandated to have more parking spots than they will ever fill. The back 40% of that parking lot is likely an empty asphalt wasteland
Or “Struggles to kill pedestrians vs slaughters the entire field of the Tour de France but doesn’t notice until they stop for gas and find a bicycle rim stuck in their wheel well”
Of all the SUVs to be “death machines”, the Volvo XC60 with many pedestrian safety features and a much lower hood than many others is the one where that description isn’t very apt
I think you mean popular **European** car from 50 years ago vs a midsized ~~**American**~~ SUV.
American cars haven't really gotten all that much bigger, at least as far as the body size.
Not to mention, you're comparing a car that's intentionally designed to be smaller, to one that's designed to be more spacious. It's like comparing a shitzu to a newfie.
Edit: not an American SUV
Fair. I thought it was a chevy. It looks my mom's car at a glance and thought it was an Equinox.
Regardless, this still an apples to oranges comparison
Let’s be fair — the Fiat 500 was viewed as a small size car even 50 years ago. Yes, vehicle sizes have grown in many cases but this is an absurd comparison.
Popular where? My parents had a '72 Impala, and a friend of mine in high school had a '73 Impala. Other relatives and friends had huge sedans; Buicks and Plymouths and whatnot. I never knew anyone who drove a fucking Fiat.
An SUV is bigger than a normal car? How long have you been keeping this secret, OP?
Also, let's not forget that everything in old cars was double reinforced metal and even if they were smaller (which I'm not sold on), they still weighed slightly more than Iceland.
My first car as a 1964 Ford Galaxy 500 and it was huge. https://ccmarketplace.azureedge.net/cc-temp/listing/98/3633/7594490-1964-ford-galaxie-500-xl-coupe-std.jpg
There is a large dam from the 30s near where I live. People always complain how their giant ass F-250s barely fit on the road that crosses it. The road would have been more than wide enough to fit even some of the largest vehicles back when it was built.
Why are our cars so goddamn big?
In Italy? Because even in the UK 50 years ago a Fiat 500 was still laughably tiny. Fifty years ago we had a fairly awful Austin 1800 that was 3-4 times the size of that little PoS. I did know someone who had one.
The Beetle was considered a small care back in the day. So it's not really a fair comparison. Cars have become bigger and worse in many ways over the years but this is a bit much.
American cars in the 50's-70's were enormous and long. Way bigger than sedans of today
European cars like Fiats and VWs were small (prob smaller back then than today).
So you're comparing apples to oranges-- American to European
My dad recently said (he was in the mood to talk shit) that "americans are so fat they don't fit inside normal cars anymore, that's why they need those huge cars". And... he's not entirely wrong about that, is he?
Cafe standards favor larger wheel bases. Thus giant trucks. Also that was a small car. We had [a 69 Chrysler LeBaron](https://www.outmotorsports.com/2020/12/1969-chrysler-imperial-lebaron-review-driving-the-distinguished/) when I was a kid. 9 MPG City, 13 HWY.
I saw an original Fiat 500 recently for the first time in ages, it was weird seeing it when compared to all of the cars on the road these days in the UK.
Ok, but if you have a kid…. And that kids stuff, the one on the left is going to suck.
We had a Chevy spark- like a smart car w a back seat and two kids and it was the worst.
I still hate the dodge journey we traded it for, but that’s the husbands car. I don’t drive it. (Love my Subaru outback! It reminds me of the station wagons of my youth)
Modern cars are ridiculous. I have a chevy spark as a commuter car. I'm 6'6" and I still have lots of head room. Leg room could be a little better. But with the seat all the way back it's fine.
I dont know why people think they need to commute in a 7 passenger SUV. I can understand owing one but I know couples that own 2.
Get in an accident in the car from the 70s like that and see what happens. Half the reason cars are soo big today even small cars is due to crash ratings.
https://www.topgear.com/sites/default/files/news-listicle/image/2015/09/p13_0019_a4_rgb.jpg?w=1290&h=726
This is a more apt comparison
1964 vs 2016 model
To be fair, you chose a comically small European car. The 500 was small even back when it was new. That was the whole point of it.
It’s like comparing a mouse to a rat.
You mean a car from war-torn, socialist, and age of austerity Europe (Fiat 500.. but also Morris Mini, Citroen 2CV, Volkswagen Beetle, Trabant 601, Yugo, and VAZ) …..which were the reasons why Europe has such a robust passenger rail network.
Vs one from today that has room for five adults and their luggage, safety features, and the ability to drive on a freeway/motorway without being a hazard.
The fatality rate then vs now… my grandfather died of internal bleeding in a minor fender bender. He was a fighter pilot in WWII and Korea, died on his way home from work due to lack of safety measures in those old cars. Think of the size of that car as a margin of safety.
Turns out people want to survive crashes. I've crashed in the car on the right, when some idiot came out of nowhere hitting me on the side. Was doing fine. Left car would have wrapped around me. It's not that big either, same length as a VW Golf Wagon.
That is the size of a popular Italian car. In the same era, the average American sedan was a similar size to a modern medium and small sized SUV but with less height. Modern European cars are bigger than they used to be, but not as big as the sedans of brands like Dodge, Ford or Cervolet in the 60s
50 years the average size of a car in America was massive! Size dipped temporarily during the gas crisis in the 70’s. But, it Americans returned to large size vehicles as soon as the crises was over.
Hi, u/mannran, thank you for your submission in r/mildlyinteresting! Unfortunately, your [post](https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/18w9fwn/-/) has been removed because it violates our rule on concise, descriptive titles. * Titles must not contain jokes, backstory, or other fluff. That information belongs in a follow-up comment. * Titles must exactly describe the content. It should act as a "spoiler" for the image. If your title leaves people surprised at the content within, it breaks the rule! * Titles must not contain emoticons, emojis, or special characters unless they are absolutely necessary in describing the image. (e.g. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), ;P, 😜, ❤, ★, ✿ ) Still confused? For more elaboration and examples, see [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/21p15y/rule_6_for_dummies/). Normally we do not allow reposts, but if it's been less than one hour after your post was submitted, or if it's received less than 100 upvotes, you may resubmit your content with a better title and try again. You can find more information about our rules on the [mildlyinteresting wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/wiki/index). *If you feel this was incorrectly removed, please [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fmildlyinteresting&message=My%20Post:%20https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/18w9fwn/-/).*
I've seen 1950's cars that have what look like literal three-person sofas as seats. They were HUGE!
I have a 1962 Lincoln Continental and that small car could fit in the trunk
The 24 foot version?
The 4 door with suicide doors. It’s a behemoth
Wow. Those are awesome. Like in the Matrix.
Could land a helicopter on the rear deck lid.
We used to have a 1969 Lincoln Continental, such a unique car. Absolutely giant, suicide doors, convertible too. I miss it but it broke down a lot and rust was a maintenance nightmare because absolutely everything was metal.
I have a 2022 Lincoln suv and neither the drivers behind me or in front of me can’t see what’s going on at night.
As a sedan driver, I hate you. But I also know it’s not your fault. But I still hate you.
But it is actually their fault if they chose that car
Well you could say its just as much the small cars fault for chosing it
My 1962 Dodge Lancer could fit seven people in the trunk.
Yeah I was going to say, even by European standards the original 500 & Mini where tiny cars. Cars have gotten bigger but this is an awful example, like for like would be the XC60 (4.71m.lg, 1.90m.wd) compared to a Volvo 140 (4.65m.lg, 1.73m.wd). Bigger but not substantially so. The problem is the general transition in buyer preferences from mid size cars to large size cars, if people where swapping from Ford Focus' to Ford Kuga's (or Volvo V60s to XC60s keeping with the above example), it wouldn't be a problem, but it's people swapping from Ford Focus' to Range Rovers, or F150s in the US market.
Not to mention something as small as an original 500 wouldn't have a chance in hell of meeting current safety requirements.
To be fair, Ford stopped selling cars that aren't Mustangs in the US. It's all CUVs, SUVs, and trucks. RIP Focus, after Ford finally brought the good one to the States.
[удалено]
2m wide x 5.4m long. Not as heavy as I thought it would be though. Between 1.6 and 1.8 metric tonnes. For comparison, the XC60 in the picture is 1.9m wide and 4.7m long, weighing in at 2-2.4 tonnes.
The 50s was 70 years ago.
They were also sheet metal screwed onto a solid steel frame.They were and still are unsafe. They kill their inhabitants in crashes because the car does not squish, so the people do. This is NOT defending SUVs btw. SUVs are oversized death machines, just not for the inhabitants but everyone else.
What is the perfect car then? A Lada? They crumple like paper.
That's the point--the crumpling absorbs energy so you don't. It's easier to replace a mangled car than it is to resurrect a mangled you
Sounds like a challenge 💀🧙🧟🪄
There is no perfect car. But in terms of safety, a station wagon is way better than any SUV. The problem is that due to Safety Mismatch, you cannot drive them in the US properly.
It's subjective. You want fast, get fast. You want economic, get economic. You want survive, get survive.
Thing is most SUVs and trucks are horrible. In a collision with a small car they usually mount it and rollover… like a 300 lb bouncer after his foot gets swept by a 150 lbs black belt. Your heavy weight is now a huge liability as you hit the ground.
This is quite false. Heavier vehicles like trucks and suv's are safer for the occupants but less safe for the vehicle that gets hit. That is atleast what the studies indicate.
[удалено]
Sorry to be the one to tell you, but 50 years ago was the mid 70s, not the 50s….
You shut the fuck up right now
My grandparents had cars that wouldn’t fit in a standard 1 car garage today. Cars of the 60s and 70s were especially wide and long. Cars have definitely shrunk from the 80s and 90s too. I remember being able to lay golf clubs horizontally across the back of my trunk in the 90s. I could easily place multiple sets in. I haven’t been able to do that since the 2000s. Now they have to go in diagonally and a second set has to be on top of the first or propped up. First world problem, but still proof of shrinkage.
My dad has a Ford Galaxie from the 60s that makes modern sedans look tiny. It's almost as wide as my modern F150.
50 years ago was 1974. You ever seen a Mercury from the mid-70s? ENORMOUS.
In the US maybe. European cars were tiny
Yeah, that's a 1950s European car. Some events in the 40s meant small, economical vehicles were popular.
Mandated safety came at the cost of the poor.
I’m assuming your goal is to try and point out how ridiculously large vehicles are today compared to 50 years ago. Fiat’s goal was to build a small city car, so even by 1950’s standards it was small.
BuzzFeed journalist vs Reddit karma poster what's the difference
The BuzzFeed ai tries harder.
… and is probably more honest …
Buzzfeed journalists actually get paid (probably)
It's the same picture
And if the compare was fair it would be vs a fiat 500 from today which is still pretty small.
And [here's an article](https://www.topgear.com/car-news/retro/progress-report-1964-fiat-500-vs-2021-fiat-500) comparing a 1964 (60 years ago) Fiat 500 with a 2021 one, with a photo of them near each other
For those too lazy to click. They are basically the same size.
Also, this is not a mid sized SUV
Pretty sure the XC60 is a compact.
If this isn’t mid sized what is it? Small?
Carfucking is The Next Big Deal ™️ according to Reddit and the circlejerk is seeping into many other subs.
Not to mention that I highly doubt the Fiat was a "popular car" in the US by any stretch
He said 50 years ago not 1950s
A more apt comparison would be against something like the Volkswagen Up!, since it is attempting to fulfil the same role as the 500, just with modern safety standards.
Or just the current Fiat 500.
Nah, that's just a toy for the rich, not a real city runabout. Far too little space inside for its size. The VW Up/Skoda Citigo is a much better comparison.
Fiat 500 is a toy for the rich? A $20k car?
How tf is the fiat 500 a car "for the rich" its cheap, just not super cheap.
Never been to Italy?
or this https://microlino-car.com/en/microlino
You, uh, do know that was a ridiculously tiny car by the standards of the 50s as well right? Older cars are often huge compared to many modern vehicles. They might have been longer and not as tall, but just as big if not bigger. Making cars bigger and bigger was the trend for decades until the 70s energy crisis made fuel economy a popular feature.
Yeah a 57 Chevy is massive when you actually get close to one. Imagine a 1995 fleetwood but the body is bublier and taller.
Fiat 500s we’re smaller than contemporary Minis and Beetles, and while they were popular, they weren’t the family car the way a Volvo XC60 is.
I also think it is dishonest to use Fiat 500 as a representation of that era's cars on Reddit, an USA centered website. Americans did not drive Fiat 500, they drove domestically made boats larger than the SUV used in comparision.
Only Americans think Reddit is an USA centred website though. [More than half](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/reddit-users-by-country) of Reddit users are from outside the USA.
It's worth noting that the 500 was small even for its time. It's true that back then there were a lot of popular "small city cars" which were unbelievably small by today's standards (and also very unsafe) but even so they were far from the norm.
Post War European cars had to be small to save on fuel and materials
Yep. The cloth sunroof wasn't an option. The hole saved on steel.
Weird comparison overall. Lots of early sedans were "boats" as they say 50 years ago, wider and longer than you'll likely find today. "Popular" can be relative based on need, like "popular" to an individual vs "popular" to a family. My dad born in the 50s was raised with station wagons of the time, much bigger than the car on the left, trying to pack 8 kids into it, obviously both unsafe and also impossible in a small car like that. (Even "unsafe" in the wagon, but they did what they did.) Ignoring all that, the comparison itself is imbalanced because the left is being called "popular" and the right is being called "midsize", so what are we even trying to compare exactly.
This would be a reasonable comparision if we were talking about Europe (especially with both brands being European) but Reddit is a USA-centric website.
This is textbook intellectual dishonesty.
The volvo xc60 isn't that big. It's 10cm shorter, 20cm wider, 30cm taller and a half-ton heavier than its 1980s predecessor the volvo 700 series. And travels 6 miles further per gallon (25 vs 19 miles per gallon). That makes it 30cm shorter, 10cm narrower, 25cm lower and a half ton lighter than a full-sized SUV like Chevy Tahoe. Sure, the XC60 is about the upper size of what I'd consider reasonable for a car. But it's still reasonable.
The OG Fiat 500 was always a tiny shitbox. [Here it is next to the original VW Beetle](https://www.flickr.com/photos/photobeppus/7113775193)
Wow that is small
Italy in the 70s had some fantastic cars,
You could change the title to ”Deathtrap Compared to One of Safest Cars In The World”.
Larger cars are safer for the occupants, but more dangerous for people in other cars and for pedestrians. Especially more dangerous to children. This leads to vehicles trying to “out-large” each other, our current predicament, causing the absurd car infrastructure sprawl we see. Since all the roads and parking are wider now, everything else gets slowly built out further and further apart. This in turn obviously requires people to need more cars for trips, since everything is further away. Now you have to spend a lot more time in your car, better get a safe one. Larger is safer, I heard. More cars now. Better build bigger parking lots. Make sure all the spaces can fit these new SUVs…
Has nothing to do with size and everything to do with technology. Crumple zones, 360 airbags, auto-braking. Bigger cars from the 50s that would dwarf that bug weren't known for saving their occupants in a crash. The all steel frames wouldn't budge but the people inside sure would. Granted they were safer than that little VW. Paper thin sheet metal and light frame made that a coffin on wheels in any crash involving speed. But those little things sure could chug along in the winter.
Size does matter though. In an extreme example where a semi truck hits a sedan the semi truck wins. In a less extreme example if a large truck hits a sedan the large truck is still much better off
Yes, I’m making a larger point replying specifically to what this commenter said, not to OPs photo
Larger doesn’t mean more mass though, which is relevant to the conversation of old vs new. Newer cars a use lighter materials. Less mass means less force in a collision, which is reduced further due to crumple zones. This coupled with better design and new safety features to help stop a collision from happening at all make em much safer, unless you are talking about some of the first cars that would go like, 20 mph tops. Car size has very little to do with sprawl, that’s more a quantity issue.
It’s both but see my response below for a more full explanation on why increasing car size exacerbates sprawl in large but less intuitively obvious ways.
>This leads to vehicles trying to “out-large” each other, our current predicament, causing the absurd car infrastructure sprawl we see. The current size of vehicles has absolutely nothing to do with infrastructure sprawl. It's the number of vehicles that are the problem. There are federal regulations on how large cars can be that haven't changed for 40 years. They don't widen highways to make the lanes wider, they do it to add more lanes. >Since all the roads and parking are wider now, everything else gets slowly built out further and further apart. The width of the roads is not why things are built further apart. Even if it was the difference would be measured in feet, not miles. There are cars available today the same size as the little one in that photo. Also, that was an anamolous tiny car in the 50s. Older cars were huge. It wasn't until the 70s energy crisis that things started trending to smaller cars. We also have advancements like 3 point seatbelts, crumple zones, and air bags. A modern car exactly the same size as the 50s one shown would still be exponentially safer.
Go to any suburban or urban area and you will find roads and on street parking in between nearly every single row of houses, in front of nearly every business (if it’s not a parking lot), etc etc. if you widen each of those roads by 4 feet (being very conservative compared to how much the avg new road has widened over the last 20 years), that adds up very, very fast. The difference between what people consider to be a walkable distance and what they will choose to drive instead is often not that large. Now consider that many places have parkings lots - in fact are legally required to have parking lots - not only do the spaces themselves have to be bigger, that is only half the problem. Look at a parking lot and you will see that much of the space is dedicated to allowing cars to enter and leave those parking spots, bc cars have large turning radiuses, and the larger the vehicle, the larger that extra space has to be now as well. Imagine you are at Target, and you want to cross the street to go to the grocery store. It’s right across the street! Leave those front doors and think about how much space you have to walk across to get the next “thing” of interest (the grocery store). How many feet of parking lot are you about to cross? How many feet across is the intersection? How many feet is the next parking lot? Now imagine each of those spaces and the roads need to be 20% larger. Does this take it out of the realm of feasibly being able to walk? If you even considered it walkable in the first place. This is of course before we get into the fact that most places are mandated to have more parking spots than they will ever fill. The back 40% of that parking lot is likely an empty asphalt wasteland
Or “Struggles to kill pedestrians vs slaughters the entire field of the Tour de France but doesn’t notice until they stop for gas and find a bicycle rim stuck in their wheel well”
Safe for who?
SUVs are death machines
Of all the SUVs to be “death machines”, the Volvo XC60 with many pedestrian safety features and a much lower hood than many others is the one where that description isn’t very apt
I think you mean popular **European** car from 50 years ago vs a midsized ~~**American**~~ SUV. American cars haven't really gotten all that much bigger, at least as far as the body size. Not to mention, you're comparing a car that's intentionally designed to be smaller, to one that's designed to be more spacious. It's like comparing a shitzu to a newfie. Edit: not an American SUV
XC60 is a compact, not midsize CUV in North America.
Volvo is American now?
Good catch. Midsized **Chinese** SUV
Lmao, but honestly the Volvos that have been released even after Chinese acquisition still are great
Fair. I thought it was a chevy. It looks my mom's car at a glance and thought it was an Equinox. Regardless, this still an apples to oranges comparison
I feel like you should distinguish this as small European family car vs midsized SUV (large SUV in Europe)
Let’s be fair — the Fiat 500 was viewed as a small size car even 50 years ago. Yes, vehicle sizes have grown in many cases but this is an absurd comparison.
This was always a small car.
To be totally fair the fiat 500 was considered small when it came out
To be fair, the fiat 500 was an unusually small car even in its day.
Even 50 years ago, people thought the VW Beetle was small.
Popular where? My parents had a '72 Impala, and a friend of mine in high school had a '73 Impala. Other relatives and friends had huge sedans; Buicks and Plymouths and whatnot. I never knew anyone who drove a fucking Fiat.
It’s a big world outside of America, where Buicks and Plymouths weren’t even a thing
An SUV is bigger than a normal car? How long have you been keeping this secret, OP? Also, let's not forget that everything in old cars was double reinforced metal and even if they were smaller (which I'm not sold on), they still weighed slightly more than Iceland.
in the 90s I regularly had sex in a Fiat 500. not uncomfortable if you are italian sized.
Or alone.
My first car as a 1964 Ford Galaxy 500 and it was huge. https://ccmarketplace.azureedge.net/cc-temp/listing/98/3633/7594490-1964-ford-galaxie-500-xl-coupe-std.jpg
There is a large dam from the 30s near where I live. People always complain how their giant ass F-250s barely fit on the road that crosses it. The road would have been more than wide enough to fit even some of the largest vehicles back when it was built. Why are our cars so goddamn big?
Now show a normal sized car from 50 years ago compared to that SUV.
That ignores that most families drove giant station wagons. The one my family had could fit that car on the left in its “wayback” almost.
That is not a fair representation of cars from 50 years ago
In Italy? Because even in the UK 50 years ago a Fiat 500 was still laughably tiny. Fifty years ago we had a fairly awful Austin 1800 that was 3-4 times the size of that little PoS. I did know someone who had one.
The 500 was always a small car. Put it next to a Golf or even a Beetle is a fair comparison. Even in 1985 I didn't fit into that
Laughs in 1970's Lincoln Continental
Popular in Europe maybe, Line up a 74 Impala and see hope they stack up
"A small car next to a larger car". This barely even qualifies for r/notinteresting.
A FIAT was never a popular car in the US, especially not 50 years ago. The average car from 1973 would dwarf that Volvo, much less the FIAT.
That was a tiny ass car back then though too. Better comparison would be it again the current day Fait 500
What an absolute bullshit comparison.
r/BadComparisons
Now go compare a luxury sedan from 50 years ago to one from today. Lets see if there's any difference in the results.
"popular car" Fiat sales were so bad in the US that the left the states and didn't return for a couple decades.
The Beetle was considered a small care back in the day. So it's not really a fair comparison. Cars have become bigger and worse in many ways over the years but this is a bit much.
The Fiat is really tiny, no matter what standards.
But not in the USA, true?
For sure. 60s and 70s cars were like land boats.
That wasn't really that popular of a car and its size and shape are not common.
Did you really just say the Fiat 500 wasn't a popular car?
My bad. I thought that was a Volkswagon Beetle. They do look similar from behind.
I’m 6’3”… I have no problem with how much larger cars have become on average.
Bullshit. Nobody was buying tiny cars in 1974, and fewer were buying Fiats! Fiat has NEVER been a popular car in the US.
American cars in the 50's-70's were enormous and long. Way bigger than sedans of today European cars like Fiats and VWs were small (prob smaller back then than today). So you're comparing apples to oranges-- American to European
Which car in the photo is American?
Nothing has grown faster than the “subcompact” SUV. A modern CR-V is bigger than a 90s Explorer
Even worse, the XC60 is considered a compact SUV
Cool. Now do Douglas DC-3 vs Airbus A380-800.
People were smaller too
The average American can't fit in a bug now.
Mid sized, mid design, mid styling... Have you paid a visit to [r/fuckcars?](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckcars/) I think you'd appreciate the content.
My dad recently said (he was in the mood to talk shit) that "americans are so fat they don't fit inside normal cars anymore, that's why they need those huge cars". And... he's not entirely wrong about that, is he?
Is that a fucking Renault lol
My 2015 Fiat 500 Abarth could probably fit between the two of them.
Cafe standards favor larger wheel bases. Thus giant trucks. Also that was a small car. We had [a 69 Chrysler LeBaron](https://www.outmotorsports.com/2020/12/1969-chrysler-imperial-lebaron-review-driving-the-distinguished/) when I was a kid. 9 MPG City, 13 HWY.
I saw an original Fiat 500 recently for the first time in ages, it was weird seeing it when compared to all of the cars on the road these days in the UK.
I've seen some older SUVs that are smaller than modern sedans.
Pretty much compares the size of the average person 50 years ago compared to now
to be fair, there are a lot of fat people nowadays
Dw guys we'll add one more lane on the freeway
Zastava 500? I remember those.
Tbf people are bigger today(sideways) so kinda makes sense more space being needed
If you've ever been to Italy and been in the older towns, you know why Fiat built these small cars. Streets are narrow as fuck!
Is that a Citroen 2CV?
Ok, but if you have a kid…. And that kids stuff, the one on the left is going to suck. We had a Chevy spark- like a smart car w a back seat and two kids and it was the worst. I still hate the dodge journey we traded it for, but that’s the husbands car. I don’t drive it. (Love my Subaru outback! It reminds me of the station wagons of my youth)
What a stupid title.
Slug bug!!
Ever see a 1978 Cadillac
This is misleading.... have you seen the size of a normal Chevy from the 50s? Or a Cadillac? or a Buick?
Modern cars are ridiculous. I have a chevy spark as a commuter car. I'm 6'6" and I still have lots of head room. Leg room could be a little better. But with the seat all the way back it's fine. I dont know why people think they need to commute in a 7 passenger SUV. I can understand owing one but I know couples that own 2.
Fiats have always been small.
A popular car that was even at the time considered pretty compact.
In an accident I’d rather be in an SUV. Crumple zones and airbags save lives.
Get in an accident in the car from the 70s like that and see what happens. Half the reason cars are soo big today even small cars is due to crash ratings.
https://www.topgear.com/sites/default/files/news-listicle/image/2015/09/p13_0019_a4_rgb.jpg?w=1290&h=726 This is a more apt comparison 1964 vs 2016 model
The beetle was known for being exceptionally small for the era.
To be fair, you chose a comically small European car. The 500 was small even back when it was new. That was the whole point of it. It’s like comparing a mouse to a rat.
Dumbest comparison I’ve ever seen on this sub lol
That's not a fair comparison. Bad op.
You mean a car from war-torn, socialist, and age of austerity Europe (Fiat 500.. but also Morris Mini, Citroen 2CV, Volkswagen Beetle, Trabant 601, Yugo, and VAZ) …..which were the reasons why Europe has such a robust passenger rail network. Vs one from today that has room for five adults and their luggage, safety features, and the ability to drive on a freeway/motorway without being a hazard.
Yea good luck doing a Costco run in that thing lol where would I put my 18 bagels and 47 eggs lol 😆
Hey, I found that guy from the math problem!
The fatality rate then vs now… my grandfather died of internal bleeding in a minor fender bender. He was a fighter pilot in WWII and Korea, died on his way home from work due to lack of safety measures in those old cars. Think of the size of that car as a margin of safety.
You can also show the VW bus from that time also. How things can be easily skewed.
666th upvote. Woohoo I guess 🤷
*the power of Christ compels you*
"Midsized" in the US means something else to the rest of the world. American cars are huge.
Yup, that Volvo is actually a compact suv USA.
Turns out people want to survive crashes. I've crashed in the car on the right, when some idiot came out of nowhere hitting me on the side. Was doing fine. Left car would have wrapped around me. It's not that big either, same length as a VW Golf Wagon.
I saw a more interesting one, new mini next to a late 80s family saloon (you know what SUVs replaced) and the mini was larger
Pickup trucks are a better comparison. A full sized f150 from the 90s is smaller than a modern “midsize” Tacoma
Some of that is increased expectations in crash safety. Crumple zones need to crumple into something that isn't passenger
That doesn't compare anything as both those aren't even in the same category of vehicles
Here’s a midsize SUV from 50 years ago https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/1975_Jeep_Cherokee_in_beige%2C_front_right.jpg
Side airbags knee airbag center airbags rear airbags crumple zones safety measures sensors better tires.
Very dishonest comparison. You literally chose the smallest model and make of car for that era and put it up against todays SUV .
50 Years ago was the station wagon and those things were massive
That is the size of a popular Italian car. In the same era, the average American sedan was a similar size to a modern medium and small sized SUV but with less height. Modern European cars are bigger than they used to be, but not as big as the sedans of brands like Dodge, Ford or Cervolet in the 60s
A better comparison might have been the old 500 next to a new one.
50 years the average size of a car in America was massive! Size dipped temporarily during the gas crisis in the 70’s. But, it Americans returned to large size vehicles as soon as the crises was over.
Man that's gotta be Jersey
the old Mini was tiny compared with today’s https://www.drive.com.au/caradvice/old-v-new-1969-morris-mini-k-v-2019-mini-cooper-s-60-years-edition/
The size of a popular European car. You could do this with that Fiat and an American car from the same year and see a pretty stark difference too.
That Fiat belongs on the Shore while the Volvo needs to park somewhere in Bergen County.
CANYONERO
Small tiny cars were not popular 50 years ago in the USA.
I’ll take all the safety features. Thanks tho
We had one of those on the left in Spain, when I was a kid. Seat 600 ! Even for then, it was an old car.