What's Wrong With This Picture: Americans Don't Buy Hatchbacks Edition
This was the sight that greeted me when I left work this afternoon: one of the least popular cars on the American market and the Camry-on-stilts that drives the most successful brand to debut in America since the Vietnam War. The Mazda2 is often used by automotive journalists as an example of The Car That Real People Don’t Buy despite the fact that it possesses the cardinal virtues of small size, light weight, and a responsive chassis.
The Lexus RX, on the other hand, is the most cynical effort in additional manufacturer profit since the Cadillac Cimmarron and is the upscale vehicle most often purchased by the people who don’t know a God-damned thing about cars.
It’s also obviously a hatchback. If the Venza is a mega-sized version of the “bread van” Civic generations of the mid and late Eighties, then the RX is the scaled-up five-door 1979 Civic of our era.
Once upon a time, cars like this were very popular, you know. So much so that the be-trunked versions of the Camry and Stanza seemed like odd curiosities when they started rotating around small-town auto show stages. The demise of the family hatchback seems preordained in retrospect but there was nothing inevitable about it. While it’s easy to blame CAFE for the awkward, unpleasant, and occasionally deadly transition from full-sized sedans to pickup-based SUVs, it’s much harder to figure out why the hatchback disappeared from family cars only to reappear on family cars that just happen to possess an additional two inches of entirely useless ground clearance.
Perhaps it was the fact that BMW and Mercedes-Benz never embraced hatchbacks, which marked the fifth door permanently as an accessory of the proletariat. The problem with that theory is that the Gran Touring BMWs are showroom poison, which suggests that Americans will only accept a hatchback if it comes with additional ground clearance.
Maybe what’s required is one really good regular hatchback to turn this thing around. My vote for such a device would be the Honda Crosstour. Make the new one better-looking. Don’t raise the suspension. Make the pricing attractive. See if people buy it. If it succeeded, Toyota would respond with the return of a hatchback Camry. At that point, Nissan would have no choice but to bring the Stanza back.
You know what would happen then, right? Anything the Japanese do, Ford will do two years later and GM will do seven years later. Close this browser right now, hop into the interstellar cold-storage chamber, come back in ten years. The world could be full of hatchbacks. You never know.
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I used to fuss about the cynicism of carmakers with CUVs and the naivety of the buyers, but then I brought a '92 Accord. Before I get to that I do want to say that I like the few more honest CUV approaches like the Subaru Outback, they were CUVs that weren't ashamed to hide their car origins. But with the Accord I learned something, I learned whats wrong with a fair deal of cars now. They are TOO low! Too low and too hard to get in and out of! Yes the low-wide nonsense gives you better "dynamic" handling, I could tell the Accord wanted to be a BMW. But it also gets annoying hearing your front bumper scrape every speed bump, or having to bend over just to get in\out. Automakers should ditch the whole "coupe sedan" nonsense, there is a market for cars with people-friendly proportions. Look at how well early Scion Xbs have sold and retained their value, and how many more CUVs sell just for the better proportions. I think that we should leave the swoopy coupe garbage to coupes and sports cars, bring back proper sedans\wagons. We shouldn't have to deal with SUV pretensions to get halfway decent ground clearance and space. Look at the Kia Soul, it may be ugly and may have a goofy Hamster-fueled ad campaign, but its also proof that automakers can make reasonably proportioned cars that're also safe. These days I run a Volvo 245, I beg someone to find a modern CUV that can double as a truck when you fold the rear seats down.
I think the biggest problem with the Mazda 2 is the brother-sister Ford Fiesta, if you want a small deformed-looking hatchback why would you buy the slower Mazda 2 over the Fiesta? The other problem is general perception with the Lexus GRX you feel like "you're on top", ahead of the game, its the difference between a Lexus ES 250 and a Toyota Tercel. When people buy cars they feel better putting their money on something thats easy to live with and that feels a bit more "upscale", if they were car buffs, they'd be driving around in modded Colony Park wagons, or something with a "chipped" turbo. Theres also the Mazda 3, why would you buy the 2 over a 3? For more dynamic handling? Fuel savings? If you seriously want a bottom dollar hatchback theres the Chevy Spark (which is admittedly much harder to look at).