The trend is smaller. Petite, but not tiny. These are not small like the Smart Cars and they all feel bigger than, say, the Mini Cooper. Please bear with us while we rant for a moment:
It's funny—the small things make all the difference. Our main roadmaster, a 1998 Saab 900s, has never let us down. The windows still work, it doesn't leak oil and, hell, it's started every time we've turned the key. But the dash squeaks. It squeaks like crazy. It makes us want to drive it right into the God-damned East River! Why mention this? Because, the car is a great car for us. Yet Saab's lack of attention to detail is making us hate this product.
Attention to detail. It's a simple thing, really. We all put it on our resume along with multi-tasker and that we know how to program in all computer languages. 
But it's something auto makers often miss. We've already mentioned that we are quite impressed with the new sub-compacts that are about to hit the streets and there are several reasons for this:
1. We can afford them
2. They are pretty miserly with fuel (they are no hybrids, but they hold their own)
3. Attention to detail
We're going to focus on #3 because the others are pretty self-explanatory. You know what wacky thing we did in the those three cars? We flicked the turn signal maybe 30 times in each car. Then we went to each of the manufacturers other cars (read: more expensive) and did the same thing. Why? We want to see where Nissan, Honda, and Toyota changed from spendy to affordable. It wasn't in the turn signals—they felt the same. We sat in the back seats of these cars, too. We're not claiming there's rooms like a Cadillac DTS, but for a small car, they got room a-plenty. 
And, no, we're not claiming they "felt" like a Cadillac, but they all certainly felt as roomy as our Saab 900s.
We think these will be wonderful cars for first-time car buyers, families and people who need a small second car. A somewhat related concern has to do with our domestic auto makers. Where's the competition, boys? There is not one good competitor for the Versa (which had really, really good seats, btw), Fit or Yaris. Is this another market that Detroit has missed?
To be fair, GM does have the Aveo. Of course, this subcompact gets worse mileage than the larger compact Civic and Corolla...
Posted by: Geotpf | Wednesday, April 19, 2006 at 08:42 PM
I am excited to get the chance to test a Nissan Versa. I'm just amazed that it sounds like they got so much right with the Versa, and then you go and look at what they have planned for the Sentra replacement and wonder what the hell happened there...
Posted by: Jay | Wednesday, April 19, 2006 at 03:00 AM
Great minds think alike. I addressed this issue on my blog:
http://www.thecarblog.com/rants/microcar_invasion_is_on_again.php
As for the Big 2.5, one word: money.
Posted by: Joel A | Monday, April 17, 2006 at 12:40 PM