I'll jump with something completely different. Mine is rigged for touring, gets 23 mpg with a 5 cylinder Mercedes diesel and has 250 k miles
Posted on 04/07/2018 9:56:30 AM PDT by upchuck
After a century of ferrying millions of daily commuters and taking countless family road trips, simple passenger cars are disappearing from American life, and they may not come back.
Detroit's Big Three automakers — Chrysler, Ford and General Motors — pioneered the mass production of the car, but in just four years, all three may be known to Americans simply as truck and SUV makers, with only a stray sedan for sale.
The automotive industry in America is making what many observers think is an irrevocable shift toward pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles and crossovers. While carmakers are producing sedans and sports cars that are safer, faster and more comfortable than ever, customers continue to flock to taller vehicles with features cars simply cannot offer.
"Since 2009 or 2010 it has been a truck story," said Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of forecasting at LMC Automotive, which tracks the auto industry. The exception was a slight pullback in 2012, when the midsize car segment underwent a major refresh, he said.
The trend shows no sign of abating, despite cries from car enthusiasts that crossovers lack the driving dynamics of sedans and complaints from environmentalists that SUVs and trucks are typically less fuel-efficient than cars.
By 2022, LMC Automotive estimates 84 percent of the vehicles General Motors sells in the U.S. market will be some kind of truck or SUV. Ford's ratio of domestic SUV and truck sales will hit 90 percent; Fiat Chrysler's will notch a whopping 97 percent.
"We have SUVs eventually crossing the 50 percent threshold by themselves in the near future," Schuster said.
Signs suggest SUVs and crossovers are also taking hold elsewhere in the world.
Automotive executives and industry watchers think there will be only a small space for sedans in the U.S., perhaps consisting mostly of sports cars or niche vehicles favored by enthusiasts.
A few factors that drove this unprecedented shift can be attributed to gas prices, a stronger economy and big improvements in the design of sport utility vehicles, said Karl Brauer, executive publisher at Cox Automotive.
"It was really a one-two-three punch," Brauer said. "Essentially every force lined up to help SUVs, and that has been hurting car sales."
More at the link.
I'll jump with something completely different. Mine is rigged for touring, gets 23 mpg with a 5 cylinder Mercedes diesel and has 250 k miles
I put the back seat down and the dogs love getting in the “cave” when we take a trip. I think it is pretty funny because sometimes you can only see there eyes glowing back there.
Indeed the empirical death & injury rates have vastly improved for SUVs. Still bad but much improvement
I stand corrected. Thanks for the data
In the 1970s American car companies were putting out junk (everything from AMC, the Ford Pinto, the GM Chevette, the Plymouth K-Car) and their reputations went down the tubes. The quality did improve but the reputations never fully recovered..
Do not care for Expeditions. I have a Tahoe already and am thinking about getting a Suburban. I would like to get a big American car also but you can’t anymore.
And taller.
We should get rid of the corporate average fuel economy standards. Let the market decide and let people have choices of what sort of vehicle they want. Personally, I tend to drive intermediate size cars, and they get decent gas mileage. But that’s my choice. If there is a major market for different types of vehicles, let people have that choice.
We could even make a political statement here. Liberals urge us to be pro-choice on the abortion issue, but on many other issues, they restrict our choices of how to live our lives.
It will work until the next recession and/or next time gas prices skyrocket.
People would slow down when they saw them thinking it might be undercover police car.
My 2006 Mercury Mariner is stop plugging along (actually much better than that sounds)
I ask myself what the benefit would be for buying a new vehicle. Mileage is roughly 24/34.
I’ll never go back to a sedan/ station wagon.
...still plugging along.
Smaller cars, generally speaking, haven’t gotten bigger in the last 20 years. The 2018 Civic has more HP and space than the 1998 Accord did.
Sorry - HAVE gotten bigger. Not haven’t.
A lot of the 70s performance problems were due to the EPA enforcing pollution controls when the technology did not really exist yet. They also required stupid safety stuff like the 5 mph bumpers. I remember that especially 73 and 74 cars were bad. My parents had one that used to just die for no apparent reason when it was brand new. The catalytic converter came out in 1975 and relieved some of the issues. The rest of the world waited until we developed the emission control technologies in the 1980s before they applied it to their cars at home. I had a 1984 BMW 323i and a 1986 BMW 535i that both ran on premium leaded gas in Germany, which you could not even buy at most stations in the USA anymore at that time. My first unleaded gas German car was a 1989 BMW. Our gubmint made US car companies pay for developing the technology for the rest fo the world with the resulting crappy running cars during the process. I blame the US gubmint at least as much as I blame US car companies for bad products in the 1970s.
Jerry Seinfeld on his Comedians Getting Coffee Netflix show said as he and Joel Hodgson got out of a 63 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia and looked around in a parking lot and said today’s cars all look like oatmeal. Meaning all looked plain looking. Joel said they were grinding off all the edges.
63 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia
http://cdn.barrett-jackson.com/staging/carlist/items/Fullsize/Cars/16279/16279_Front_3-4_Web.jpg
One of my high school buddies had a 1960 something Karman Ghia. it was a fun car.
I came upon a Crown Vic...
Crown Vic’s and Grand Marquis are the best.
So true. I have a 2008 Lincoln Town Car, with 27,000 miles. IMHO the finest American luxury car ever produced...I love to drive it, (sparingly) so roomy and comfortable.
“Sorry - HAVE gotten bigger. Not haven’t.”
If you dropped a pencil between the driver’s seat of my 2010 Jetta and the center console you’d have to fish it out with a piece of wire. The seat cupped you so tightly that turning around was nearly impossible. I felt like I was wearing the car and it was too tight, yet I am average sized. The regular model had a trunk opening that wouldn’t accept a modestly large cooler.
This is why people are abandoning cars for trucks and SUV’s.
I had a 2004 Ranger, auto, small V8. Loaded a truck camper on the back and drove it all over the country. Nice truck. Traded it on a 2002 Chevy cargo van with very low miles and converted the rear into a sleeper.
I do love me a panther body. Recently snagged a 11 from the salvage auction. Grand Marquis ultimate edition. Even has the super rare floor shift that I am fairly sure someone snagged from an older car
Likely be the last car I own. They will go 300k no problem. This one has 52k on it
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
