(EXPANDED 10/24/2022)
“Lower, longer, wider” was the domestic automakers’ dominant design approach until they were forced to downsize their fleet in the late-1970s due to federal fuel-economy standards. Since that time automakers have at least partly reverted to taller, shorter and narrower vehicles, but the damage was done.
As American cars got longer and wider, that left an opening for imported cars, which were almost always smaller. Detroit accentuated the problem by racing to make their cars ever lower. While that might have given a car swoopy styling, it also robbed it of interior space.
Detroit groupthink held that any US automaker which did not participate in the race to make their cars lower, longer and wider would be at a competitive disadvantage. Yet during the time when this practice was at its peak, foreign automakers made major inroads into the American market. In 1962, when Detroit had finished rolling out a veritable Spanish armada of compacts, imports held less than 5 percent of the US car and truck market. By 1980 — only 18 years later — foreign brands captured 23 percent (Wards Auto, 2017).
The shift to lower, long, wider cars took off in 1950s
Paul Niedermeyer (2017) has noted that the 1949 Plymouth Suburban wagon has almost identical dimensions to a 2017 Toyota RAV4. Of course, contemporary sport-utility vehicles such as the RAV4 are taller and shorter than their passenger-car siblings. However, the height of a 2019 Corolla sedan is 57.3 inches. That’s 2.5 inches taller than a 1964 Studebaker sedan, which was considered old hat because of its tall and narrow body.
Also see ‘1964 Studebaker: Brooks Stevens hammered final nail in the coffin’
The shift to lower, longer and wider cars began in the 1940s and accelerated in the 1950s. This trend was primarily dictated by styling considerations, although — all else being equal — a wider and lower body should corner better than a taller and narrower car.
Pontiac touched on both styling and handling in its “wide track” advertising, which often used illustrations that gave its cars hilariously distorted proportions (go here for further discussion).
In the 1970s US automakers still tended to make each new generation of cars lower, longer and wider, but advertising was less likely to emphasize it. For example, the illustrations Pontiac used in its ads looked somewhat less exaggerated. Then the brand switched to photography that did not use a lens which distorted the car’s proportions.
Standard Ford grew dramatically in postwar era
To offer a general sense of how much “standard-sized” American cars grew, the table below shows the dimensions and weight of Ford four-door sedans in base trim between 1940 and 1980.
Up through the early-50s, Fords were roughly the same size and weight as family-sized compacts such as the 1962-66 Studebaker, the 1961-65 Mercury Comet and the 1963-76 Dodge Dart. Note that all of these cars had similar dimensions to the recent-model Toyota Camry.
Also see ‘Compact cars became the neglected stepchildren of U.S. automakers’
By the mid-50s, Fords had inched up to roughly the same size as mid-60s intermediates.
The redesigned 1960 Ford had a 81.5-inch width, but that was quickly pruned back the following year because it was illegally wide in most states (Howley, 1993). The rest of the 1960 Ford’s dimensions and weight were similar to intermediates of the mid-70s, which had mushroomed in size from a decade earlier.
The graph below shows how the Ford and Chevrolet grew by roughly a foot in length between 1955 and 1961. The Plymouth grew even more — 20 inches — if you go back an extra two years (go here for further discussion).
You would think that the Ford’s bigger footprint would translate into a much roomier and more comfortable interior, but that arguably wasn’t the case. Hip room was around three inches greater, but the lower seating position made sitting over the driveshaft hump less comfortable.
Weight increased by a commensurate amount — particularly for Ford and Chevrolet. Of course, as the pounds were added, components such as brakes needed to be beefed up. Fuel economy declined, as did maneuverability. Power steering and V8 engines were increasingly considered a necessity.
Indeed, for 1973 a V8 was made standard on all big Fords — which added more than 300 pounds to the entry-level model tracked in the graph below. This illustrates how the movement to lower, longer and wider cars overlapped with making them bigger, glitzier and more powerful.
Note that the Plymouth’s temporary dip in weight in the above graph reflected its downsizing in 1962 (go here for further discussion) and the temporary discontinuance of larger models in 1979.
Ford does a modest — and temporary — downsizing
For 1965 the Ford Motor Company put its full-sized platform on a bit of a diet. Fords stayed roughly the same length, but width was reduced by three inches and weight by more than 200 pounds.
Also see ‘David Burrell’s take on the downsized 1962 Dodge and Plymouth gets partway there’
This was not as dramatic of a downsizing as the Chrysler Corporation did to its full-sized Plymouth and Dodge. However, the 1965 Ford represented a relatively rare post-war effort by a Big Three automaker to make its standard cars more efficient.
For the next decade the big Fords gradually grew larger and heavier. For example, the 1975 LTD was comparable to a 1956-57 Lincoln Capri in length, width and weight. The main difference was height, where the LTD was more than six inches lower.
Also see ‘1974 AMC Ambassador: Was its styling ruined by bumper regs?’
Federal bumper standards are commonly blamed for the increase in length and weight of American cars in the mid-70s. That was true to a point. The big Ford ballooned almost seven inches and more than 400 pounds between 1972 — the last year before the standards began to take effect — and 1974. This was the largest increase among the Big Three’s low-priced brands.
The big Ford, Chevrolet and Plymouth had actually grown substantially even before the bumper standards. Between 1965 and 1972, length had increased by an average of around seven inches and weight went up over 400 pounds. One can blame at least some of the weight gain on newly required safety equipment, but not the increased length.
Also see ‘Hemmings highlights late-70s attack against U.S. bumper regulations’
Ford gave its big cars a major downsizing in 1980, mimicking similar efforts by General Motors and Chrysler. All that really did, however, was to bring the standard Ford back to the general size of mid-70s intermediates. It would take the introduction of the front-wheel-drive Taurus in 1986 for Ford’s primary family car to compare in size to its early-50s predecessors — or a contemporary Camry.
Smaller cars got lower, longer and wider too
Of course, just as standard-sized cars got squished like a pancake, so too did American compacts and mid-sized cars. For example, the 1971 Ford Maverick four-door sedan was more than five inches longer, three inches lower and .3 inches wider than its predecessor, the 1960 Falcon.
Mid-sized cars were even more susceptible to this trend. The 1973 Chevrolet Monte Carlo was more than 17 inches longer, almost four inches wider, almost an inch lower and 740 pounds heavier than a comparably equipped 1964 Chevelle. This was before 5-mph bumpers were required on both the front and rear of passenger cars. Once that happened, the Monte Carlo’s length grew to 213 inches. That was as long as a 1965 Impala — and 1.4 inches lower.
Independent automakers did best with compacts
The American public bought tens of millions of “lower, longer, wider” cars in the post-war era, which for our purposes ended with the second oil embargo of 1979. Even so, during the entire period when the Big Three’s standard-sized cars got bigger, family-sized compact cars were always popular when they were offered.
Also see ‘Antitrust regulations: Lack of enforcement fueled U.S. industry’s decline’
The biggest-selling post-war cars from the independents were the 1946-52 Studebaker and the 1956-62 senior Ramblers — both of which could be classified as family-sized compacts. After the Rambler got too big (go here for further discussion), car buyers shifted over to the Dodge Dart and Plymouth Valiant, which enjoyed an enviable level of sales in the first half of the 1970s despite their aging design.
In other words, the market for efficient-sized cars did not disappear during the post-war era. Most domestic automakers were too fixated on making their cars lower, longer and wider to continue meeting this need. Foreign automakers were happy to fill the void.
NOTES:
This story was originally posted March 1, 2019 and expanded on Sept. 22, 2021 and Oct. 24, 2022. Product specifications are from Gunnell (2002), Flammang and Kowalke, 1999), the Automobile Catalog (2021) and the Classic Car Database (2021). Tables and graphs with shipping weights are from entry-level four-door sedan models with six-cylinder engines (unless a V8 was standard).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Automobile Catalog; 2021. “Full detailed specifications listing and photo gallery.”
- Classic Car Database; 2021. “Search for Specifications.”
- Flammang, James M. and Ron Kowalke; 1999. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1976-1999. Third Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Howley, Tim; 1993. “1960-61 Ford: ‘Finest New Fords of a Lifetime.” Collectible Automobile. Feb. issue: pp. 43-55.
- Hyde, Charles K; 2009. Storied Independent Automakers: Nash, Hudson, and American Motors. Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI.
- Niedermeyer, Paul; 2017. “CC Comparison: 1949 Plymouth Suburban Wagon and 2017 Toyota RAV4 – Almost Identical Dimensions.” Curbside Classic. Posted Dec. 11.
- Wards Auto; 2017. “U.S. Total Vehicle Sales Market Share by Company.”
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcaradvertising.com: Pontiac (1959, 1971, 1972); Studebaker (1951)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Chevrolet Monte Carlo (1976); Ford (1955, 1962, 1965, 1975); Ford Fairlane (1966)
Excellent. Thank you.
My pet peeve. I find it ironic that after all the millions spent to downsize and get maximum room and fuel efficiency out of their products the industry forgot that costly lesson and went back to their old ways.
After watching Mustang go from a trim efficient product to a bloated mini T Bird [and Cougar the same] then down size and start the whole thing over again in the 00s.
Or seeing that perfect downsized GM B body turned into that bloated mess in the early ’90s.
Mission creep.
Sadly it’s happened with Civic and Corolla. Sentra. Accord.Rav4. Camry. Original Taurus to ovoid Taurus.
In the Taurus case, Ford had no clue why it was successful. And the answer was…..MOAR everything.
I am skeptical it’s all collision related, but suspect a great element is that the industry just cannot help itself.
Moar! Always MOAR. Tried and true.
It’s burrowed into the industry DNA.
Thanks again for making all the observations on this.
MOAR indeed!
In the April, 1968 edition of “Car and Driver”, a piece by the late, greatly-missed Brock Yates, “The Grosse Pointe Myopians”, fully explains why Detroit kept on making bigger, lower, wider and heavier cars: (I realize that “Indie Auto” printed this in November, 2018, but Yate’s essay still applies directly to the post-Korean War automobile industry.)
“Margaret Mead, the world-famous anthropologist, has said that the modern businessman tends to confuse data with knowledge, and commented that he would probably be a good bit more successful if he knew less, instead of more, about what his competition was up to. Her reasoning is based on the fact that his independent thoughts and actions are stifled by the sea of data in which he swims and his desire to counteract and copy the competition, rather than strike out on his own.”
“”Fortune”, in an August 1966 story on General Motors, commented on a state of affairs that applies to all automakers. “GM officials . . . are products of a system that discourages attention to matters far outside the purview of their jobs. And they are captives of a camaraderie that keeps them much in one another’s company—on the golf course and around the card table as well as the conference room. While this generates an esprit de corps that constitutes one of the organization’s great strengths, its effect is to insulate GM’s managers to many contemporary currents of thought.”
“Detroit executives remain confident that they are thinking at least five years ahead of the public’s tastes and that very few car buyers know what they want. They are certain that if they have made any miscalculations about the quality, design, or functions of the cars they provide, they have been only temporary and that slumps in sales are attributable to government meddling, an unhealthy economy, or the citizenry’s churlish refusal to accept what’s good for them. For the most part, they stand by the statement made by C. F. “Boss” Kettering, “It isn’t that we are such lousy car builders, but rather that they are such lousy car customers.””
“And yet Detroit bustles onward in its Ike and Mamie good-life syndrome, convinced of its perpetual position of preeminence, not even pausing to question such unsettling things as computerized, electronic vehicles or underground transportation networks, and other ultra-sophisticated, mass-transit systems. After all, America has to be told about the glories of Bloomfield Hills, Birmingham, and Grosse Pointe.”
The article James makes reference to can be read in its entirety here. It’s worth your time. Also, a friendly reminder to not quote too extensively from copyrighted material in your comments.
I often found Yates to be a frustrating read — particularly toward the end of his career. However, I have a lot of respect for him writing this particular essay and a subsequent book, because he said what needed to be said at the risk of getting into trouble with auto industry executives.
Some of the ideas in his essay have not aged very well, but overall he offered a prescient analysis. I also admire the elegance of his wordsmithing.
If you’re interested, here is my take on the auto media’s reaction to his death.
Steve, while this analysis contains much that is true, there are also some other factors that I suggest bear consideration.
Firstly, the fact is that the growth of standard size vehicles in the 1950s and 1960s happened in tandem with the growth of freeways and suburban living. Until advances in suspension engineering from the 1970s, lower and wider vehicles were indeed materially better suited to this new form of driving. So too were heavier vehicles with better sound deadening and more highway friendly accessories, such as air conditioning. My early childhood was mostly spent in Valiants, which although pragmatically efficient, as I recall were not very pleasant on the freeway. They were noisy, rode harshly, and lacked onramp “pickup” and passing power.
Secondly, the wave of downsizing coincided not just with energy issues in the 1970s but also deregulation of the airline industry in 1978, and thereafter the decline in middle class families going on long-distance road trips for vacation. Our family Valiant was replaced by a GM colonnade wagon for just that purpose, and it served that purpose much better than the Valiant, although it was a gas hog, hard to park, and had much less room than you might say it ought to have had for the size and weight. Better still was my grandfather’s 1976 Electra 225. I took a long road trip with my family for the first time in decades last year during COVID in an otherwise sensibly sized Lincoln MKZ, and frankly it was just too small for 3 adults and a child and their luggage to travel in comfort.
Thirdly, the use of the family car changed as the number of families having second and third cars increased dramatically from 1960 to 1980 (see: https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-transport-challenges/household-vehicles-united-states/), and family sizes shrunk. With more vehicles in the family and fewer kids, there was less need to seat six on more than an occasional basis and therefore less need for vehicles to be wide, and luggage capacity could also shrink.
The other thing that bears thinking about is how consumer fashion continues to drive inefficiency in vehicle design. Today it is higher rather than lower. Crossovers, which have effectively taken over the family market, are materially heavier and less aerodynamically efficient than the mid sized sedans they replaced, don’t handle as well, offer no more useable passenger room and less cargo room below the beltline, and are inherently noisier. But the RAV4 outsells the Camry, and you can no longer get a midsize sedan from most manufacturers. Is that Grosse Pointe myopia on a global scale? Or is it a case of giving consumers what they want when they want it, even though you know it isn’t what they should want or necessarily will want in the future?
Most of the import penetration happened after the Big 3 launched their compacts and subcompacts, and superior quality was a major driver of their ascendency. The Big 3 continued to sell big cars because the market kept buying them, and if the big cars were anywhere near as profitable as today’s BoF SUVs and pick-ups, it would have made sense to keep selling them.
All that said, it was one thing to sell a wide, long car that was only 54 inches tall. But when that car evolved to become increasingly narrower, shorter and more aerodynamic, the interior shrank, and shrank, and shrank, and like the frog in the slowly heating pot of water, the consumer woke up one day realizing that they weren’t happy anymore.
Ten years ago we were a one mid-sized sedan, one small hatchback family and had been for years. Now we are a two crossover family. I agree that too many crossovers are not as space-efficient as they should be, my ’14 SRX included. But they all have a liftback and rear seats that fold down, and they allow passengers to sit higher relative to the floor. The basic sedan never evolved in ways meaningful to the large mass of consumers. Our last sedan was a 2002 Volvo S80 and after 10 years of driving it I got tired of sitting so low and being able to carry so little. Now I am tired of riding so high in my piggish crossover. It shines in hauling things and family vacations only. What I had always wanted was something in between but the industry mostly ignored such vehicles until recently. The Accord-based Honda Crosstour was such a car and I would have bought one but the interior execution was too miserable to live with. Too base Acura didn’t make a version of it, instead putting the ZDX on the MDX/Odyssey platform.
I think it all comes back to the fact that the G.M. intermediates of 1964-1967, based on a 115-inch wheelbase and the Chrysler-product intermediates based on 116-inch wheelbase, were ideals for the average American front-engine, rear-wheel-drive sedan / coupe. Motor Trend observed this in comparing the 1964 Chevelle to the 1955 Chevrolet. But every car maker when refreshing these designs kept making the overhangs longer and adding weight. And when it comes to the medium-price brands, I always thought that the 1961 G.M. cars, the Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick B-bodies were the right size, but in the following years, more weight and more overhang were added. The worst offender was Ford after 1968, although the other manufacturers were right behind.
This month, my Kia Soul was in the body shop after being hit-and-run by a Ford F-150 pickup in late June. My first rental was a 2022 Chevrolet Malibu. An okay sedan, but very clumsy in terms of driving position and comfort. Plus, it had the worst low-beam headlights I have encountered in a post-1939 vehicle ! I traded it at Enterprise to a 2022 Nissan Sentra. It too was a four-door sedan, a bit more comfortable than the Malibu and overall a nicer driving car even with the CVT, but for my tastes, it sat too low as well. I got my Kia Soul back yesterday afternoon. I genuinely appreciated the more upright and more commanding view of my surroundings. No wonder the RAV4 outsells the Camry. I think the American driver was born to drive Freightliners !