Hammer Time: Our Disappearing Rear Ends

by Steven Lang

Updated: May 16th, 2014 Published: November 29th, 2011

Yesterday's butcher is today's forensic anthropologist..

Can your car move a corpse?

Well, if you lived in my home state of New Jersey in the 1970’s, most any car of that time could accommodate this minor inconvenience. Imapalas, Aspens, Volares, even so-called sporty subcompacts like the Ford Pinto Cruising Wagon could handle that load.

Need to bury a starting basketball team that crossed the wrong bookie? Or a Little League team that needs to be put on Icees? Pull out the family’s Lincoln or Caddy and hack at it. Even a Chevy would do. You could have even towed about 2000 to 5000 pounds of authentic Teamster’s cement just to smooth it all out.

But nowadays? Trunk space? Fuhgeddaboudit!!!

This is what passes for storage space these days. Enough rear storage for a family weekend vacation. But definitely not enough for a ‘National Lampoon” road trip. Sure you can fold those seats down. Add a luggage cage. A roof rack. Maybe even a handy dandy shelf adjuster like the prior-gen Chevy Malibu Maxx.

But how about the bodies? How can you transport four live bodies (for now) and their worldly possessions in one of these things?

We are at a day of reckoning when it comes to trunk space. Even for big vehicles, the space is quickly getting smaller. You open up the rear of today’s metrosexual SUV/CUV and you’ll find… seats. Usually two or three ‘mini-minivan’ seats that are less comfortable than the rear facing seats of times past. Well, those were quite terrible as well. But the big point is that the once glorious rears of a generation ago have been given a CAFE treatment.

The need for rear seat room while getting a misleading measurement of MPG’s… has greatly reduced the need for trunk space. The increasing use of hybrid batteries in mainstream models… has reduced it. More importantly, the rise in empty nesters and single parent households have reduced the genuine need for rear end storage.

Is this a good thing? Since folks often use backpacks and garbage bags for their travels these days instead of intensely rigid combo-and-locked Samsonites, will our automotive rears continue to be nipped, tucked, and lipoed?

What says you?

Steven Lang

More by Steven Lang

Comments

Join the conversation

2 of 109 comments

Tallnikita on Nov 30, 2011

Trunk is a huge reason keeping me with my Volvo 240. Big stroller and laundry all fit at once. Couple of tool boxes too.

Like Reply
Suedenim on Nov 30, 2011

Several comments here about the awful cargo capacities of Camaros, both old and new, but you could cram a remarkable amount of stuff in the hatchback Camaros of the '80s. I carried all sorts of crap in my 1986 Camaro at college, and then hauled a four-year accumulation of stuff back home upon LEAVING college, including big boxes of books, some furniture items, etc. I also transported 7 people in it once, though I wouldn't advise it, nor would I advise the car itself, which was a gawdawful piece of crap on the whole. Come to think of it, cargo space might have been its chief virtue!

Like Reply

Recent Comments

ToolGuy No hybrid? No EV? What year is this? lolI kid -- of course there is an electric version.
Tassos No, this is for sure NOT my favorite Caddy. Very few Caddys with big fins work out as designs.FOr interiors, I much prefer the Caddys and other US luxury cars from the 30s, Packards etc. After the war, they ditched the generous wood veneer (without which no proper luxury car) for either nothing or the worse than nothing fake wood.For exterior, I like many Caddys from the 60s and early 70s, when the fins slowly diminished and finally disappearedEven the current " Art and Science" angular styling is quite good and has lasted a quarter century (from the first CTS). They even look better than most Bangled BMWs and even some Mercs.- from outside only.
ToolGuy Good for them.
ToolGuy "I'm an excellent driver."
Tassos If a friend who does not care about cars asks me what to buy, I tell her (it usually is a she) to get a Toyota or a Lexus. If she likes more sporty cars, a Honda or a MiataIf a friend is a car nut, they usually know what they want and need no help. But if they still ask me, I tell them to get a Merc or AMG, a 911, even an M3 if they can fix it themselves. If they are billionaires, and I Do have a couple of these, a Ferrari or an even more impractical Lambo.