America's Compact Complex

The NY Times explores one of the great riddles of the automotive world today, namely Detroit’s near-pathological inability to consistently produce quality compact cars. Scribe Rob Sass revisits the development of American compacts, and concludes that in addition to being hurt by low historic concern for fuel economy, compacts “had the bad luck of being produced by chronically undercapitalized independent automakers. These compacts were not particularly thrifty, had no distinctive engineering features and rather than being stylish but sensible, they were simply cheap and frumpy.” And as appealing as many classic American compacts now are as collectibles, the argument rings true.

Prior to the 1958 recession and the arrival of the VW Beetle in America, the then-Big 3 never took compact vehicles seriously. Their businesses had grown remarkably by presenting cars as symbols of status and style, and had largely abandoned compact, utilitarian vehicles to the smaller automakers. With the Kaisers, Hudsons and Nashes leading the charge, compacts soon gained a reputation for offering few efficiency or price benefits compared to full-sized Fords and Chevys. The failure of these smaller firms taught the Big 3 a lesson they still have yet to completely unlearn.

The introduction of the Beetle and the subsequent Japanese compact invasion introduced Americans to new standards in budget transportation, forcing Detroit to finally take the category seriously. And yet over 50 years later we are still waiting for the results. An engrained contempt for the genre has left American compacts to embody all of Detroit’s worst qualities. From imported penalty boxes (Aveo) to warmed-over leftovers in retro drag (PT Cruiser, HHR) to quasi-ute compromises (Caliber), it seems Detroit is still constitutionally incapable of producing a compact vehicle that Americans can be truly proud of. And the market is not about to become any more forgiving of this institutional blindspot.