Actually, they have four wheels but the rears are very close together.

Good question. I was in the 99 W202 and she was in a 04 Honda Civic. She hit me with her front bumper (strongest part of her car) in my driver side door (weakest part of my car). She fared worse than I did. What was the question again?

Its cool. Someone is trying something new. Maybe not the solution for all people but I think I would buy one if I needed it. I have had 13 crotch rockets so I don't really care about the safety aspect. When your numbers up, thats it. RT

The big SUV's are leaving the building with Elvis...or will be rather quickly! We had better get used to the idea of stranger and smaller cars because that will be the direction the SUCCESSFUL manufactures will go. But in Texas...there must be A/C

My only issue with this car is egress...I wouldn't have a problem, I do lots of crunches and leg presses. But I can see the typical out of shape American fatass trying to "hump up" outta this car!! Help! I'm sitting in my car and can't get out! :eek:

well the AARP crowd is out of the question as well as 51% of america

I like it, go for the upgraded 3 cylinder GT, with AC hopefully and take a major hit in economy, say 80 mpg.

Why not?

I'd go for the bare bones version.. As long as I can roll down some form of window for ventilation.. and it needs some form of sound system I Can plug my ipod into.. Silence sucks

Agreed... It just needs enough get up & go to get out of the way of the common road idiot and be fun....

For the last 30 years or so the marketing mantra has been to make them bigger and faster and people have sucked it up.

Years ago (lets say 1972 or so) 100 HP was plenty of power to do the job ( I'm not talking muscle cars) yet one was hard pressed to approach 1 HP per cubic inch displacement. Now everyone expects 200+ HP in everything and its no big deal to find that in an econobox. Why can't manufacturers produce a smaller displacement engine that develops reasonable useful power? I would think one ought to be able to get 100 ponies out of about 1 litre, but no one seems to be interested until now, maybe.

Rick

um... that would be over 2.7 HP / cubic inch...

Wait, isn't that why we drive MB diesels? :D ;)

other than engine noise...

When I have no music my brain does this thing called "thinking" and it annoys me

It looks very slick, but prototypes always do. Then the realities of production take hold. It looks over priced to me. My feeling is 1/2 the weight and size should be 1/2 the price. 22,000 US is not chump change. That kind of money will buy me a good used 560SEL and fuel it for 7 years. The market in Europe will be much better where you can only fuel the 560SEL for 3 years.

John Roncallo

The question was, why shift two tons of steel around when you are only trying to move a 180 pound human?:D

It only makes sense if everyone else is driving around in 2 tons of steel. The point is, you'd be just as safe in a light car if everyone else was driving light cars as you would be in a heavy car if everyone else was driving heavy cars. Obviously the person who originally asked that question was talking about a mass shift to lighter vehicles, and not just a few individuals doing it here and there. This packing on of steel has got to de-escalate one day, just like the nuclear arsenal of US and Russia did.

The typical econobox weighed at the most, probably what, 2000 pounds? A civic these days weighs 2600+. The new Honda Fit that's about the smallest Honda car sold is bigger and heavier than the first generation Accord.
There are engines that get 100hp/liter (Honda, BMW, high-end Italian makes) but you have to rev them very high to get that power. How many people will want to rev their engine to 8000 RPM? Not many, most people think going over 3000 RPM is hurting the engine.

These days, our crash requirements basically dictate you have to use a lot of high strength steel, which is heavy but gives the car a very stiff chassis. Go look at a crash test of a Toyota Yaris... very stiff chassis. Of course this means we can't have any cars under 2000 pounds anymore.