Traditionally, when you compared European cars with American cars in terms of size—well, you couldn’t.
Cars over in Americaland were huge whilst the European counterpart were, to say the least, diminutive.
Even when you compared the offering of the American owned companies like Ford, who had the Mustang in the US, with the Capri in Europe, it would seem that Europeans were much more at home with small calls.
It seems strange then that with family sizes in Europe shrinking and the awareness of global warming and the (alleged) roll of the internal combustion engine in accelerating this that Europeans are driving ever-bigger cars.
Traditionally, Europeans didn’t worry about size and seemed happy in a cramped car with engines smaller than the average US motorbike.
That said, the cars were every bit as iconic. What they lacked in terms of cubic centimetres, they made up with style and panache—many became pop style icons in fact.
This is no longer the case. Since 2001, there has been a 30% increase in the weight of cars sold across Europe according to a safety report by the European Safety Council.
Heck, just look at Volkswagens new Volkswagen ID.3 compared to the Golf.
Cars have grown taller, wider, longer, along with heavier, and are more suited for the plains of Americaland than the medieval streets of Europe.
Oh and of course they still carry the same number of passengers, but whereas the Volkswagen Beetle had to cram Mum, Dad and 2.3 rugrats inside; the new ID3 had to carry only 1.5 rugrats.
Much of the growth in the size of the cars is down to the need to pass on development cost of ever-greener cars to the consumer and with ever stringent and costly rules, this is easiest with more expensive cars.
Then there is the other pesky safety rules. In my day, we were crammed into whatever space was available, now there is a need for child safety seats and a seat belt per passenger.
Europeans are also now much more affluent. When so many of the iconic cars like the Mini or VW Beetle and Fiat 500 jelly-mould came out, the continent was in post war austerity and we drove what we could afford.
Wallets across Europe are fatter now so inevitably we are getting bigger cars. The trend is not just a European one though, taking a quick look around the car park at work there are almost countless SUV’s that sport a Proton or a Perodua badge.
These were companies that were all about creating cars for the masses now they have entered the SUV wars, and seem to be doing it quite well.
For me, I long for the days when my family took two days to drive to the South of France for our annual camping holiday in a VW camper van that couldn’t even top 100 kph.
We comforted ourselves as we sat atop some of our luggage that the journey was a big part of the experience.
I remember with a teary-eyed nostalgia my first car, a 1967 VW Beetle driving to South Wales along the M4 motorway not being able to reach the national speed limit of 70mph which is a tad over 110 kph with only a cassette player and a packet of Rothman’s cigarettes for company.
Tell my kids today that we didn’t have Wi-Fi in the car and they won’t believe you.
