Size is everything

[daveuprite]

Thought this might spark some comment.... ?

[OnHellas]

But all the car parking spaces are still as they were when the Austin 7 was the go to car!!

[Godspeed]

Totally! The amount of times two cars couldn’t pass each other on the small Lake District roads cause they were all driving tanks

[Billy Bananahead]

Totally! The amount of times two cars couldn’t pass each other on the small Lake District roads cause they were all driving tanks

Nah, what it is is the fact that the fatter the person the more room that they think they need to squeeze their fat past. You think i'm kidding? You just see.

[Godspeed]

Totally! The amount of times two cars couldn’t pass each other on the small Lake District roads cause they were all driving tanks

Nah, what it is is the fact that the fatter the person the more room that they think they need to squeeze their fat past. You think i'm kidding? You just see.

I know I ate a lot while I was away……

[catcitrus]

The E30 early 3 series is still the best looking BMW--EVER. We had a 316is in white. We have a 306 and actually look up to the new so called mini and fiat 500s. Some of the growth may be to do with crashability--but really its because people have got much fatter and less flexible. I have a Citroen Dispatch window van (wheelchair access with ramp) as a do it all. I sometimes check when parked next to a Range Rover or similar--same height, same wheelbase, same overall length--and you'll struggle to get 4 people and some gear in the Rover. My Dispatch will take 4 people AND a decent sized bike, and a lot of gear.

[Seminole]

I think its more to do with marketing departments realising there is a huge reservoir of insecure arseholes who think they can address their inadequacies by enclosing themselves in something large and intimidating (have you noticed how modern vehicles of all sizes have aggressive looking front ends so the wanker driving it can look mean in your mirror as they tailgate you?)

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

I kid you not...our neighbours here in Cornwall have a couple of holiday lets in their garden.

One lot of guests complained that the big local beaches were all crowded. My neighbour suggested some quiet little coves. The guy was horrified...."down narrow lanes....I'll never get my car down there without scratching it."

His car was one of those stupid Porsche 4x4s that's about the size of a 16-seat bus. An utterly pointless vehicle. If you are worried about scratching it, what is the point of a 4xfcking4?

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

I think its more to do with marketing departments realising there is a huge reservoir of insecure arseholes who think they can address their inadequacies by enclosing themselves in something large and intimidating (have you noticed how modern vehicles of all sizes have aggressive looking front ends so the wanker driving it can look mean in your mirror as they tailgate you?)

As a general rule of thumb...the bigger the car, the more incompetent the driver.
Particularly noticeable here in Cornwall, where the townie SUV driver will typically expect a tractor and loaded silage trailer to reverse out of their way.

[daveuprite]

I've had a few different cars over the years. I was quite into little sports cars and hot hatches back in the 80s. But given that you have to spend over 100k to get anything with performance close to even a cheap superbike, cars don't really float my boat. Just a way to collect the shopping. When we moved to France we bought the smallest and most economical 4x4 that still had the right weight/power ratio to tow a horse trailer - which was a Honda CR-V2.2CDi. We've had it 13.5 years and it's been utterly reliable and can handle the occasional minus 18 icy winter we get here. But when I drove it for the first time i found it huge and cumbersome. Since 2008 4x4s and SUVs have got bigger and bigger and our CR-V now feels and looks quite small by comparison!

One of my favourite cars was actually my old 300 quid Fiat Panda. You could squeeze it down any lane and into any parking space, everything in the car was manual and easy to fix and it even had a cloth dashboard! And absolutely no thief would be seen dead in it, because it was totally uncool and virtually value-less. I never locked it and never washed it - not once in 3 years. It had panels in four different colours, did about 55mpg and I basically used it as a small van. It's hard to believe that even so-called small shopping cars are now pretty bulky things. The 'mini' is now a pretty big car compared to the original.