With all of this heated talk about the death of the sedan, I’d like to reiterate a point I’ve been making for as long as I’ve been blogging: The modern, low-to-the-ground sedan originated from a stylistic pursuit of something novel for its own sake in the 1957-1958 era, to achieve lowness for the sake of lowness, and certainly not for the sake of better packaging, comfort and ease of entry/egress.
And of course, in that time period, lower meant…more modern, which meant…more prestige. Who wanted to be seen in an old fashioned tall, boxy sedan from the 1940s when Chrysler offered “The Forward Look”, along with the fins to back it up?
It took a long time, but buyers have finally awoken to the intrinsic disadvantages of low sedans, and of course now the lack of prestige (for those that care), due to them now being utterly out of fashion. Yet not everyone wants a trucklet, so Mercedes is showing an alternative: the SUV sedan, in this Maybach concept shown at the Beijing Auto Show a couple of days ago. Is this a glimpse of the sedan of the future?
I’ve been shooting my xB with other cars for years to make the point. Here it is with a ’32 Ford. of course the xB has about twice the interior room (seriously), but there are obvious parallels. The advantages of modern construction, with FWD, short hood and a low floor are huge, in terms of interior space. But one does sit upright on tall seats in either case.
Here’s the other end of the spectrum. The single most surprising thing about the 1959 Cadillac is just how modest the interior space is, considering how long and wide it is. People think of these as large cars; they are, on the outside, but any new modern sedan has significantly more room on the inside, except possibly width, never mind the huge disparity with the xB, which makes the Caddy feel downright cramped in comparison.
Increased height started to make inroads in the 1980s. The Mercedes w124 was taller than the w123. And the big S Class W140 was significantly taller than anything other than the traditionally tall Rolls-Royce and Bentleys. There was great ad for the introduction of the W140 in Germany that I cant find on the internet. It showed a very short man from about 1920 in front of a very tall sedan of that era, and a very tall modern man in front of a very low sedan, pointing out that the evolution of cars and man had been going in inverse directions.
Ford decided that this approach meant lots of sense in a smaller car, and the 1998 Focus’ height was a big deal at the time. The resultant improvement in interior seating and space was a significant improvement over its predecessor and the competition.
And of course Rolls Royce really showed that the way forward was upwards with the 2003 Phantom and its successors.
And this Mercedes Maybach is clearly in that vein, but even more so. The split rear window is an homage to the time when these were almost universal. For a frame of reference, this sedan is 69″ tall, or 4″ taller than a Phantom VII, and 5″ less tall than an Escalade.
Like on this 1938 LaSalle, which shares more than a passing similarity to the Maybach concept. I wonder which one is taller? The maybach concept, as it turns out, by several inches.
Here’s the interior of the Maybach, oriented to the Chinese top end of the market. And of course it’s all-electric.
My prediction is that there will be taller sedans in our future. And SUVs/CUVs with lower floors, for easier entry and exit. or there should be, as the whole notion of off-road capability has become a total non-issue with these vehicles. There’s still a few genuine off-roaders for that little slice of the market.
The advantages of tall sedans and wagons are very real, but they need to have lower floors to fully maximize their potential. Of course I’m biased, and I drive an xB, which has the best entry and exit and seating position of any car made in the last half century. It’s a big pickup cab without the added size and weight and excessive height of the real thing.
What Chrysler started in 1957 has long run its natural course.
K.T. Keller was right: “cars are meant to be sat in, not peed over”.
It just took a while for everyone to figure that out.
The 1949 Plymouth wagon and the Toyota RAV4 share a lot in common, in terms of dimensions.
So yes, let the low sedan die, and bring on some proper tall sedans and wagons, but keep the floor reasonably low, otherwise the advantages are not going to be fully utilized.
I am reminded of the current Ford Taurus on the D3 platform which sort of started down this road but muffed the interior by making it so claustrophobic for a car of that size.
You make an excellent point. Cars of the 40s-early 50s had higher roofs and higher seats. The higher seats make some of their own legroom so that really long wheelbases are not as necessary. Really, I think of the minivan as the original start of the reversion back to this classic shape/configuration. Ingress and egress is just about as easy as with that 49 Plymouth.
Yes, and Ford got the architecture right with the original D3 car, the 2005 500. I nearly bought one but chose the wagon version Freestyle instead. The 500 had an enormous trunk and real interior space for a family. However, it did not sell well and they remade the car into the current lower and more cramped Taurus. Paul is right about the future sedan if someone can convince Americans to buy what amounts to a notchback CUV / SUV. Ford might be the least likely to try this after failing once before.
The Five Hundred was only 61 inches tall, still quite a bit lower than most compact crossovers.
Except that its floor was lower too than a CUV, so its usable interior height was comparable. Total height means nothing, if the floor is high.
It does matter. Car buyers like that feeling of sitting up high and they prefer not to have to step down into their seat.
The floor certainly isn’t low in the Maybach. That center tunnel is thick AND high – it’s like a cinder block wall running down the middle of the vehicle.
What great fun to see the 2005-07 Five Hundred mentioned–it’s currently among candidates to replace my ’99 Taurus (due for a COAL, I know!). The Five Hundred’s height and “H-point” seem to be halfway between said Taurus and our pre-Kuga Escape, and there are some nice gently-used (“geriatric”) examples on the used car market nowadays.
I didn’t mind Ford attaching the Taurus name to it in 2008, but they put in the 3.5 engine (the one with the water pump inside the block, so to speak), and then in 2010 adopted the bulked-up, slit-window refresh.
Good point about the original D3 cars. I remember how awkwardly tall they looked at the time versus contemporary sedans. Today, with more taller sedans on the market, they don’t look all that out of place.
The ability to get in and out without having to stoop or banging your head against the car while getting in was the main reason my folks bought a brand new 2009 Taurus. It sat a bit high off the ground but had low floors and the interior was pretty roomy(the center console is actually pretty low on the 2005-2007 Five Hundred and 2008-2009 Taurus (especially compared to the 2010- Taurus)
I think Nissan did more to move people to buy CUVs with their Rogue. The Nissan Rogue is everywhere around the DC/MD/VA area
One thing about lower cars in the late 50’s is that they handled better by being wide and low compared to earlier models. As suspension and body engineering and design have improved over the decades we now have 1950 height and width vehicles with great handling.
For some reason every time I see the discontinued and generally hated Honda Crosstour I think of some postwar fastback sedan. The first time I saw a BMW X6 I was just appalled though.
Don’t forget about this monstrosity from 1978 and 79. And now, everyone seems to be going in this direction. Hopefully, some manufacturer will wise up and design a nice looking sedan again. Ditto for a 2 door coupe.
Come to think of it, why not bringing back the 2-door sedan or the hardtop coupe and hardtop sedan? 😉
Hardtop sedans aren’t possible thanks to these things called rollover standards
If Mercedes can make a current hardtop coupe, there’s little doubt in my mind that they could make a four door version too if they really wanted too. There’s no demand for that.
If the taillight panel had been vertical instead of slanted at such an angle, it wouldn’t have looked too bad at all. It’s almost like the stylists deliberately exaggerated the slope, thinking management would be sure to demand something less excessive, only they passed it for production as it was.
Like one of these.
Which were damn fit for the Queen of England limos inside. And this just a Dodge sedan, a slight step up from a Plymouth and with the same body, aimed at the middle class buyer.
Now that IS classy.
The Crosstour has always reminded me of a step down Hudson.
Ia gree, And the designers/manufacturers can easily keep the sleek look. Taller greenhouses are the key, with thin pillars to give a 360 degree view as cars first had with the 65 Chrysler Corp designs, yes the vehicles were at the “height” of long, low and linear, but the greenhouses were tall and afforded good vision. European cars excelled at such with Audi, BMW,and Fiat doing the best expression of low linear body with a tall greenhouse and spacious views. I look forward to the abandonment of the current “Bunker” styling of vehicles.
One reason is supposedly rollover protection but the pillbox thing does suck. Apparently it’s not actually necessary. Look at the current Subaru Forester for example. The 2019 model of course looks like it has a higher belt line and smaller windows.
The 2019’s windows don’t seem any smaller (though it might look it due to the annoying upswept rear door windows, a trend I hope goes away soon).
Like all those painted images in car ads and brochures at the time, the 1957 Chrysler is exaggerated. Seems kind of unnecessary. They are beautiful however, at least to me.
Agreed, beautiful.
Indeed!
The big question I see is, what is there to be gained from giving up the full-height rear hatch and potential of a single huge cargo bay that’s been part of the SUV formula since the Willys Jeep Station Wagon, and going *back* to a trunk?
Maybe a tiny, almost imaginary margin of cargo security, maybe a tad of shell stiffness, but in the former case windowshade covers and near-universal dark tint along with the fact that few “valuables” regularly carried in cars are anywhere near as valuable in real terms as they would’ve been in the ’70s-90s; and in the latter case the fact that cars are so much stiffer than they once were, make these hardly worth the sacrifice of the “utility” part of a “sport utility vehicle”.
Honestly, I’m just going to come out and say it, and I don’t care how superficial it is. Trunks look better and allow far broader styling distinction . I don’t like SUVs or tall vehicles(I’m 5’8″, stop trying to sell height as a benefit), but I’d take this goofy thing over every single SUV, Crossover or truck currently on the market.
Presumably this is a bodystyle choice on what is a basic SUV design Mercedes has in the pipeline(I’m guessing), so let us have that choice. Not everyone needs maximum practicality to the hilt, and most who think they do never utilize it when they have it. If we’re going back to the 1930s and 1940s, then do it, but really do it, 5 door hatchbacks, fastbacks, 3 box 4 door/trunks and, yes, even business coupes.
And yes, I do prefer the enclosed function of trunks better. I’m not going to argue because nobody is going to change their stance. However I will ask is the marginal sacrifice in the “Utility” being taken out of a “Sport Utility Vehicle” really the sacred cow of the segment? Sport is arguably gone from most of them as well, just let them be vehicles and forget about these silly monikers.
“Trunks look better and allow far broader styling distinction .” That’s YOUR opinion. My opinion is that there isn’t a four door sedan made in the last fifty years that doesn’t or wouldn’t look better as a wagon.
My other belief is that the populace at large has almost always misinterpreted the meaning of the term “Sport Utility Vehicle” – It’s not that the vehicle itself is “sporty”, it is that it allows one to engage in the pursuit of sporting activities better than a sedan or wagon or coupe does – sporting activities such as climbing, hiking, sport shooting, hunting, kayaking, etc., i.e. anything that is likely to take one off the beaten path. Looked at from that perspective the name makes perfect sense.
And that’s YOUR opinion. Wagons and hatches all look exactly the same to me from behind.
I’m with you on the meaning of Sport in sport utility vehicle, but it doesn’t change what I said. The percentage of buyers who buy and use them specifically to partake in those activities very likely hasn’t risen much since the days of Jeep CJs. Most available today would be barely be any more task than sedans, and serious lifestyle enthusiasts still buy more serious off road capable SUVs – Wranglers, Toyota FJ and 4Runner, Range Rovers and pickups – not the car based crossovers that encompass the vast majority of the overall segment today. Most of them will never leave pavement any more frequently than the sedans they replace.
Yes, I realize that’s my opinion, which is why I stated that it was my opinion. You just made an empirical statement about trunks looking better as if there was no other possible opinion.
The second (unstated) part of my opinion is that hatchbacks are second only to wagons, i.e. the back of either is (to me) better styled than the trunk. Again, my opinion, I understand yours is different.
I don’t have a problem with CUV’s/SUV’s rarely leaving the pavement. Most sportscars don’t ever see a race track either. Most Dodge Hellcats will never see a dragstrip. And so on. In actuality the fact that the “pavement” in the US in general has been getting in worse and worse shape over the years is doing as much to drive people into vehicles with greater ground clearance and suspension travel and at least the appearance of being able to handle said pavement deficiencies than anything else.
But the top reasons have been and continue to be the facts that A) one can see further from a higher vantage position B) ingress and egress is easier, especially with littles or elders and C) carrying stuff is easier. (All relative to a sedan.)
To each their own. Everyone should of course spend their money as they see fit.
I didn’t mean for it to come off that way, it is just my opinion, and I was being semi tongue and cheek with that declaration. There have been so many truly empirical statements in attempt to sell sedan fans on the shift to crossovers, I’m just tired of the sales pitch. Many sedan lovers think trunks look better, getting away from efficiency and practicality arguments, which mostly fall on deaf ears to proponents of either, so rather than fight the rational argument with debatable benefits of an enclosed storage area, I threw in the purely superficial one.
And many Crossover buyers do simply like them for the look as well, they rationalize practicality and ingress/egress, but let’s not act like there aren’t a sizable number of buyers getting them for their own superficiality, who don’t need or utilize the benefits.
I wholeheartedly agree about the deteriorating road conditions, but the most common damage is almost always tire/wheel/suspension components. Wheels have grown bigger, tire profiles have gone shorter, and suspensions have become stiffer, in the same time our roads have deteriorated. So while people may perceive crossovers as rugged, they’re no less susceptible to damage than a sedan. You’re better off in floaty old land yacht with steel wheels if you want to glide over the bad roads 🙂
I don’t/can’t disagree with any of that. 🙂
Concerning the term Sports Utility the first commercial use I’ve seen was by Ford when they introduced the original Bronco. The Bronco was introduced in 3 Models, Roadster, sans any top; Wagon, with the full length top; and Sports Utility which was the 1/2 cab or pickup version. I find it interesting that the Roadster and Wagon have a footnote that calls them out as Classified: Passenger Vehicle.
I do wonder if Ford USA was in anyway influenced by the Australian Coupe Utility moniker and switched it to Sports to attract the “Sportsman” of the day who could use the 4×4 to get to that remote fishing hole but still wanted/needed the utility of a pickup.
Here is makes it clear what they mean by Sports.
However they quickly started calling the pickup a pickup.
It looks ridiculous.
If you mean the tall Mercedes sedan, it’s a concept car so it has too big flashy wheels and oversize wheel openings. Actually I’ve been thinking the Continental could have used some of this concept and style. It’s only distinguishing feature is the belt line chrome door handles. It lacks the spookiness and style of its predecessors – a failure of vision and nerve.
The ’59 Chevy passenger still sits high, compared to the low cars of today. CAFE required high MPG and low roofs, but then ‘trucks’ have an exemption. So, guess what happened?
The ’59 Chevy was 56 inches tall. A 2017 Camry is 58″ tall, and has no frame under the body. Having sat in both, I can assure you one sits “lower” in the ’59 Chevy.
I often get the opportunity to ride in / drive cars from the 50’s and 60’s. It still surprises me how small and low those cars actually are, a recent model Camry feels huge and tall by comparison. I met up with a 65′ Imperial a couple of months ago and that car is REALLY small and low/short compared to my memory. Time changes everything I guess. (We currently have a 2015 Rav4 and it is probably the best all around vehicle we have ever owned for what it is worth.)
Interesting that this shows up today, at least for me. This afternoon, while driving around in “rural” Florida I saw an early 50s Dodge 2 door fastback(?) sedan. It got me to thinking about cars that were short(ish) and tall.
BTW, my family had a 49 Plymouth 2 door sedan. The front seats were like sitting on an old fashioned couch. Being a child in the time that we owned that car, I remember almost having to get up to get on the seats. Unfortunately, there is/was a drawback to that kind of seating. Because “theatre type” seating was still decades away, sitting in the back seat especially, was like being in a mohair lined cave. Even without headrests, back seat passengers smaller than an adult could not see ahead. Well, maybe the very top of a head?
The most ridiculous part is this would still get classed as a light truck if it were put in production and sold in the US.
It’s 100% electric, so it really doesn’t matter in terms of CAFE.
It would for the sake of allowing factory dark window tint, if for no other reason.
I’ll miss the low-slung sleek saloon style but I suppose it had to happen. But that stupid black cladding has seriously got to go. The car isn’t ever going into the mud, I do not desire to pretend it would. There have got to be more elegant ways to style a taller car, as had been done in the past.
But on some designs the black cladding is necessary to bridge the gap between the tyres and the shiny metal of the wheel arches. I’m thinking of many smaller SUVs, specifically my wife’s Mitsubishi ASX. If the cladding was body colour, the proportions would look all wrong. With the black, the eye just registers the body colour, and sees it as, well, ‘more pleasant’. I think of the cladding as a visual band-aid for a design that’s not quite right.
In the case of this Maybach I agree with you, BeWo. It looks as though you could fit normal-sized wheels and tyres, take off the chrome trim and cladding, make that part body-colour, and you’d still have a nice-looking vehicle. Relatively normal-looking, in fact.
It also helps to disguise floor-to-ceiling height as ground clearance. Some high trim-level CUVs now come with the cladding painted body-color and it makes them look really high-sided and thick.
Fully agree on the models currently available. Taking the cladding off of those would make the proportions look off, not unlike the removal of decorative elements on turn-of-the-century buildings in Germany (Entstuckung) that left awkwardly proportioned façades on occasion. Doesn’t mean it’s got to stay that way going forward, now that “low” cars are on their way out.
Great article Paul-
The first time I saw the 2003 Phantom in traffic, I was struck by the height of its roof- it was good 8-10″ taller than other sedans. This shot of two Rolls in Warsaw traffic shows the contrast with other cars.
At the time, I commented to my wife “That Rolls is almost as tall as the SUV next to it,” but as time has passed, they look more and more “normal.”
Once I happened to be next to a RR Phantom Coupe in traffic one day. The hoodline on it was almost exactly as high (maybe shy by 1″) as the Dodge Nitro SUV I was in!!
The proportioning on that design is excellent. Unless you have some visual reference point (a person, another vehicle) you don’t realize just how big they are. The first one I saw was parked in a (nice) suburban back-street. Alongside the 1930s houses and the group of people about to enter, it looked truly huge. And wondrously elegant.
In about 2004 I had the chance to drive a new Maybach 57, and something that surprised me was the high seating position. I remember being at eye level with CUVs, etc. and looking down at other cars.
With those big Maybachs, like those Phantoms, it was hard to gauge its height by just looking at pictures because the whole car was so massive. I suspect this new Maybach concept has a similar driving position, but the car looks higher due to the smaller overall dimensions.
The Maybach 57 was 61″ tall. The RR Phantom VII is 65″ tall. This is…69″ tall, or 8″ taller than the Maybach. And only 5″ less tall than an Escalade. (74″)
Maybe being in a Maybach just makes a person feel taller? 🙂
That’s amusing! I guess there’s some sort of Maybach Effect working on me.
Around 2000, Automobile Magazine (I believe it was them) had an article about a possible future where a truck-based car would be something America wanted, and they made an illustration where they took an F-series crew cab of the time and changed the bed into more of a trunk so it looked like an F-series sedan. Looks like that future is here.
I can’t find the website right now but there was a company that actually made Ford F250 sedans. The tail lights and trunk looked like a supersized 1st generation Focus sedan. Upon further searching….Hennesey made them?
Bob
In fact reader Ltd posted photos in their comment on a Hennessey story right here at CC. Scroll down into the comments to see them. Here’s one.
I’ve long thought a modern crew cab pickup with a covered bed is precisely a giant sedan.
….urp….
Thank you for finding that. Have any surfaced here in the U.S? To Jon. Build it, and they will come and buy.
Seriously, I can’t be the only one who sees an ‘Eagle’ here?
I’d take a F-150 Sedan/Blackwood revival with 4wd as it should have had. To be honest I’m surprised they haven’t tried bringing out a “trunk” option similar to the Blackwood’s concept of a fully weatherproofed covered bed on the top trims of the short version of the SuperCrew.
That concept shows some nice ideas, but the chintzy wheels ruin it
The developpement of road network is an important cause of lowering cars in late fifties,
In pre-world war era , road network in the US were not all paved, many rough dirt tracks were the only roads available out of big cities , so all cars were designed with 16 or 18 inch wheels and had high chassis to deal with rough roads .
After the war , the road network improved substantially, many dirt tracks were paved , a huge network of motorways was constructed by Ike Eisenhower , then manufacturers started making lower chassis cars sitting on smaller 15 and 14 inch wheels.
I owned a 1954 Belair and a 1964 Implala , these two cars have absolutly nothing in common except the Chevrolet emblem,
The 54 Belair was quite good on rough roads , It was my fishing car , went every where a Jeep could go , the chassis was high did not touch top of bumps , 16 inch wheels had no problem crossing rivers , the king pin front suspension was indestructible as far as it was lubed regularly . the torque tube was tough like a rock, the suspension was stiff, no roll , no yaw , no pitch.
the 54 Belair was not a higway cruiser at all , at 65 mile per hour top speed it was making too much noise from mechanical valve tapets , the steering and brakes were not sufficient and tuned for highspeed.
On the other hand the 64 Impala was a motorway cruiser , it was fast and powerfull , sitting low on the ground on 14inch wheels , cruised comfortably at 100mph, the power brake stopped it safely , the V8 was strong and with hydraulique lifters it was qiet and smooth at 100mph .
but the Impala could not be used on dirt tracks , exhaust pipes get ripped off, univesal joints at the open transmission shaft were fragile, suspension arms and bushings were weak, coil springs were weak, prone to sagging and breakage, bumps hit and punctured oïl sump or transmission sump, as the soft suspension moved too much, car rolled and yawned on sharp bends ,
The conclusion is : these two chevys were designed around different engineering specifications, for two different type of road infrastructures.
The “Lower , Wider , Longer” Philosophy was a result of road network improvement , and not a fashion fad initiated by Harley Earl or Virgil Exner.
Fascinating perspective….
Thanks!
Yuck. Reminds me of the ~2011 DeTomaso “revival”.
A quick glance before coffee, and I thought that was a first-gen Mazda 3 sedan!
I have to admit, i like it. it looks different and miles better to look at than all the look a like cuv’s . i would much rather drive this than any cuv and suv this side of a Suburban or Escalade. and the only cuv’s i would drive right now are the Cadys. so yeah this looks like a breath of fresh air from all the look a like crap thats out there now.
Somehow the stylist who designed the 2006 Imperial concept managed to escape and get another job at Mercedes. More Humpback than Maybach.
One factor we must not overlook is the potential for electric and battery drivetrains to allow for lower interior floor heights, shorter front bonnets/hoods, lower boot floors and so, releasing height without adding it. The new Jaguar i-Pace or Tesla Model X, for example, boast space to match much larger vehicles as a consequence of the mechanical layouts.
GM split the Bolt’s battery pack up underneath the seats to allow for a tallish profile and floor-to-ceiling height with a low center of gravity.
It’s basically this, for better or worse…
If you think about it, it’s bizarre that the sedan ever became the default car design. You have a lot of wasted space on top of the trunk. The station wagon should’ve been the standard design, and with the rise of the SUV, it looks like it finally is (just in a jacked up form).
I’ve long thought that the SUV is basically a return to Thirties car packaging.
Here’s the original “utility” vehicle.
Here’s the original “utility” vehicle. There was supposed to be a picture of a Woody Station Wagon, but it didn’t attach. Trying again
Although 30s cars weren’t liftbacks. They had normal trunks.
Except for a few Traction Avant variants, and their ilk.
To me, it seems as though the auto manufacturers have unintentionally shoved people into CUVs by producing cars that seemingly have lower and lower rooflines. My wife got a Mazda3 a few years ago, and although I liked it at first, it rather annoys me now. I’m 5’8, yet I still occasionally bang my head getting into it; the steeply raked windshield with thick pillars and the fat mirrors conspire to produce huge blind spots; and the visibility through the back half of the car is downright terrible.
I’m no fan of the CUV either. They’re more expensive than the sedan/hatchback each one is based on, the fuel mileage suffers slightly, and the pillbox greenhouses are becoming “de rigueur” on these as well. They’re just fashionably taller.
I’m biased myself. I’m going to keep driving my wife’s old Toyota Matrix as long as possible. Although it’s no xB, it’s still like sitting in a phone booth compared to the Mazda and it can carry taller cargo. And as much as I like a trunk for security, I like the added utility of a hatchback better. If it ever wears out, I hope the Versa and Fit will still be available.
Indeed (I have a 2015 3 and can confirm everything you say).
2007 was every bit as bad. I fell for the style, and missed the lack of outward visibility.
Crossovers are clearly tall cars, regardless of what the regulations call them. Tall cars are better for seeing traffic, better for being seen in traffic, and better for interior space.
One big disadvantage is how much more air a tall car has to push out of the way, as explored in this CC post on drag area. Drag area is the drag coefficient (how slippery the car is), multiplied by its frontal area.
Doubling the drag area doubles the energy spent to move through the air, which is most of the energy a car uses at highway speed. That translates into gas mileage or electric range.
Two points of comparison from Wikipedia and Google:
* 2005 Ford Escape hybrid, a small SUV: drag area 11.6 sq. ft., passenger + cargo volume 127 cu. ft, 28 mpg hwy.
* 2014 Toyota Prius hybrid, a low hatch: drag area 6.2 sq. ft., passenger + cargo volume 115 cu. ft, 46 mpg hwy.
The small SUV has almost twice the drag area but not much more space than the low hatchback.
As surely as height is going up, it will come back down. At least until energy efficiency doesn’t matter as much as it does now. Maybe in 20 years we’ll have cheap clean energy, cheap batteries and tall cars.
Good point Mike, and I should probably check the numbers before shooting from the hip but the Prius doesn’t seem that low to me, so that I would guess that the drag plays a larger part than the area in this case. Did the Escape hybrid have an engine as efficient as the Prius Atkinson cycle one?
The current Prius is 58″ tall.
So the Prius is 8″ lower than the RAV4 in your chart, Paul. The 2005 Escape is 70″ tall, a full foot taller than the Prius.
Yes John, the Ford hybrid system is a full parallel hybrid with Atkinson cycle and planetary gears like the Toyota hybrid. Maybe not as refined as Toyota’s in 2005 but basically the same.
Today’s crossovers probably have a little better drag coefficient than the old Escape did, but area (height times width) matters regardless.
Someone is getting old.
I literally just had a great visual on this. I’m on I-40 eastbound in the Mojave, and passed, about an hour apart, two trucks towing old Chevies on open trailers. One was a ‘58, the second a ‘57. The difference in proportions, as seen approaching directly from behind, was dramatic. PS – I’m the passenger, not texting and driving ?
If, say, GM/Chevy would just reintroduce the tri-five cars again, all would be good! After all, you have upright greenhouses and seating, lots of interior room, plus a wide, deep trunk. In other words, a vehicle that is an actual car, not a SUV, but still sits higher than average.
Sounds simple to me because we are all getting older, especially boomers like me, and while my Impala is still easy in/easy out, a bit taller vehicle appeals to me if it doesn’t resemble a CR-V or RAV4 or similar ride. In other words, it has a real trunk.
Another interesting thing is that while many cars went ‘tall’ from the late 90s onwards, a lot of them are getting lower again, and rooflines become more fastback-like. It is as if the designers are thinking if you don’t want a CUV then clearly you want the most stylish, sporty sedan possible. Even one that is ostensibly a coupe, but with 4 doors.
I’m not surprised to see this new concept, the M-B GLE ‘coupe’ has a tiny deck lid in my eyes.
The new Corolla hatchback is lower than the outgoing iM which is lower than the Matrix was.
That leaves Toyota in an odd position since the C-HR seems to have been a dud; IMO a return to something as xB1-like as possible is in order but they may just take the easy way out and shove a lift kit under a version of said Corolla hatch.
The top half of that Maybach looks like a Rover 600.
As well as (ceterus paribus) reduced frontal area, lower cars also have lower roll centres, giving them a natural handling advantage. Also easier to wash the roof. And to see over on a bike.
Spot on with the Rover.
These big lumps aren’t friendly if you want to encourage more cycling.
Show me a nice “woody” wagon and the evolution cycle will be complete.
No your PT cruiser need not apply.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ford put out a full line of Focus hatchbacks rather than just the raised and cladded Active model, now that they’ve gotten the “FORD KILLS CARS” headlines and stock price bump from a Wall Street addicted to “move fast and break things” edginess.
Sedans are less certain; it’s a heckuvalot cheaper to swap around spring lengths and exterior trim than it is to tool up and certify a second body style (will there be a new Focus sedan anywhere in the world?)
The advantages of tall sedans and wagons are very real, but they need to have lower floors to fully maximize their potential.
As others suggested, that describes a minivan, a market segment that Ford and GM have both abandoned.
One of my biggest gripes about my Taurus-X was the height of the seat. When exiting, I could not plant my left foot on the ground, due to the height of the seat. I had to resort to turning sideways in the seat and sliding off the edge of the seat to land on my feet on the ground. When at the Detroit auto show a couple years ago, I was comparing the new Tiguan to other SUVs of about the same size. After about 3 hours of running around the show, I became tired enough that I could not boost myself up into the SUVs anymore. No problem plopping into my VW wagon for the drive home tho.
Speaking of cramped cars, I think this was the most cramped car I have ever sat in…a 1950 Plymouth. My lower profile VW is much roomier.
Isn’t it funny how things come full-circle?
Personally, I think this concept from Mercedes is absolutely atrocious, but indeed it is a glimpse into the past of what most “cars” used to present as far as their attributes.
Beyond the ease of entry, space efficiency, greater sense of safety (even if this “sense” is mostly fluff), let’s not forget a primary driver in the purchase of CUVs: image.
It stems from the “tough” image of original truck-based SUVs. Quite frankly, many buyers, particularly those who don’t care much about handling and performance, find the added ride height and size of a CUV to be empowering. It’s a totally hedonistic way of thinking, but to this large group of like-minded buyers, even the most refined, largish modern sedan might as well be a subcompact hatchback from the 1980s, while in their eyes, the cheapest subcompact CUV symbolizes the an inflated amount of power and respect.
As I’ve put it elsewhere they’ve managed to build a tall wagon with ease of access as a main priority, without the dorkiness of the ’80s pioneers of the format (Nissan Stanza Wagon, Chrysler/Mitsubishi Colt Vista).
I’ll just come out and say it. That Maybach’s horrible. But if they build it, and someone pays a boatload of money for one, I’ll get a giggle or two every time I see one. I think everyone missed the whole CUV/SUV thing except Jim Klein. And my brother in law, who refers to his Suburban as his “Sports Car.” As in, wind sailing, skiing, soccer, softball, golf… you get the idea.
I’ll take that bow now, thank you very much! 🙂
And yeah, that Maybach is horrific. It all of a sudden makes the hunchbacks (X6, GLE coupe, Acura ZDX etc) look palatable.
For some reason when I look at this I think H-body Lesabre. Suddenly its 1992!
In other news, Toyota announced they’re spending $170 million to expand the Corolla Plant in Mississippi. That way they can shift some of the Corolla production away from the Rav4 plant in Ontario. Since they only sold 329,000 Corollas here last year, they’re obviously missing something. Or Ford is.
You can guess which of the two I think is right.
I have to agree that it is an evolutionary change. Sedans and coupes got too low and hard to enter and exit, and their trunks could not accommodate enough gear. Buyers turned to minvans, then SUVs and quad cab trucks. Small cars were now mostly four door and hatchback designs which provide the most utility out of a smaller platform. The majority of buyers are not enthusiasts so they will buy what fits their needs and is easy to live with. Personally I love long low cars. My old ’97 XJ6 is lower that almost any car in traffic, and my XJS is about the lowest thing I’ve ever seen. Beautiful, but hard to get into. As an enthusiast vehicle I can overlook a lot their impracticality.
On the other hand I’ve got an F150 that is roomy and comfortable with the only problem being that it’s sometimes hard to park. That being said, I find that my ’96 four door Explorer is just about the perfect sized vehicle. For some reason I just like it better than I did my minivans, but I don’t carry little kids anymore.
As Paul mentions; what’s old is ‘new’… again.
seems AMC was just decades too early. evidently, they’d be a real hit today
“The Eagle has landed” … again.
The AMC Eagle was only 55 inches tall. The AMC Hornet/Concord on which it was based was a puny 51.7 inches tall. So jacking it up only made it as tall as a normal car
i didn’t expect, nor intend for it to be taken, ruler in hand… so literally what with height measurements and all.
im sure some will appreciate/get the jist of where my post was going in using this vehicle on the subject.
I also remember the only Eagle that was anything like popular was the wagon. The 4-door sedan was a very distant second.
One other observation … our last house in the now upscale Bay Area suburb of Los Altos was built in 1956. It had a fairly large two car garage, but with individual sliding doors and a post in the middle. It was a tight squeeze, widthwise, for my wife’s New Beetle and required the mirrors folded in the few times I pulled my Land Cruiser in, with just fractions of an inch to spare. Clearly, within a few years after it was built, cars probably stayed out in the spacious semi-circular driveway.
I’m onside with K. Keller and P. Niedermeyer: longer-lower-wider is about fashion, not function. Tall boxes for the win, bring ’em; let’s have more.
But I surely hope that Mercedes excrescence is not the sedan (or anything else) of the future. It’s cartoonishly hideous.
After all this fine discussion, now Google’s serving me ads for truck bed covers. Sheesh!
I’m all for this. My Trooper is the most comfortable vehicle with the best sight lines I’ve ever had, but I’ve never “needed” the BOF capacity or necessarily RWD…it’s just very comfortable. The 1st gen Pilot reminds me a great deal of the conservative style and sight lines, and the Forrester is a next-size down version.
I would be very interested in anything that size that had a hybrid system….