An ad for a Chevy Sonic just popped up on my computer . . .I kid you not
Coincidence? I think not…
The rear …’‘seat’’…is where you place your 3way 15" speaker cabinets ! the seat belts will safely hold them in place 
( home style cabints so you can easily remove them for in-home use and anti-theft…yes, I had a drummer who did this. )
Porsche, Camaro, Mustang, Challenger, and there are a lot more. A case could be made that just about all small 4 passenger cars have an almost unusable back seat.
OP queries Why would anybody buy a FOUR Seat, TWO Adult Passenger automobile?
Somebody must be buying them, I see them driving down the road. Not as many of them as the Chevy Volt though.
Seems like it would be a good configuration for solo drivers. Enough room to put your bicycle pump and helmet in the back seat. Or if you had two adults and two kids in the family. Or two adults and two dogs. Or a student who’s hauling around books and gym clothes.
Air cooled VW Beetles were pretty popular in their day, and the back seat in those cars had almost impossibly limited legroom. I saw a photo in a car magazine the other day of the first Toyota model introduced to the US market in 1959. Believe it or not they called it the “Toyopet”. And the rear seat legroom was … well … limited. But Toyota turned out to be pretty successful, much to the chagrin of the manufactures from Detroit who offered ample rear seat legroom.
I see a LOT of Sonics up here, so they’re obviously selling them in spite of the rear seat room. My dad’s '63 Corvair didn’t have much in the way of rear seat room either, but since it was just me and my brothers, it didn’t matter at the time. A couple of co-workers here have Soncs. Their primary use is long distance commuting, so rear seat room is irrelavent.
Corvairs were great cars. My dad had a '61 (on which I learned to drive) and then a '65 (which I put my share of miles on). They really got a bum rap.
Some of these “tiny rear seat” cars would be reasonable if the driver was about 5’3". Move the front seat all the way forward and then you have some legroom in the rear. But if you are 6’ and can’t drive with your knees touching your ears, well, that rear seat is reserved for babies or the leg-less since the seat back nearly touches the rear seat.
BTW, Porsche 911’s are the worst I’ve ever seen, forgot about them.
“They really got a bum rap.”
You can thank Ralph for that
He seems like the kind of guy, if I met him, I would take an instant DISLIKE to him
" Toyota model introduced to the US market in 1959. Believe it or not they called it the “Toyopet”."
I heard (well, from Jeremy Clarkson) that they were originally going to market with the brand name as “Toyolet,” but some wiser minds prevailed.
Don’t know if that’s really true, but I DO know I was in an Asian grocery one time and saw (what I presume to be) chicken stock on sale, identified as “Cock water!”
Db, I agree. Even if I had no idea who he was and I met him I’d STILL dislike him.
They had to rewrite the words Arrogant and Pompous in the dictionaries when he became a public figure. The definitions weren’t repulsive enough.
This didn’t start as a debate on Ralph Nader, so I’ll pass on that, but two seat cars are a reasonable thing in my view. Look around the next time you are driving, especially at rush hour. Most cars have one person in them. Now try to imagine what things would look like if the cars were invisible and the only thing you could see on the road was the people. You’d see one person and then about 25 or 30 feet and one person and then 25 or 30 feet and one person in each lane. Imagine how long the lines in the supermarket would be if we all stood that far apart. All those cars in heavy traffic just don’t amount to a lot of people. So, tiny cars for one or two people make a lot of sense. Maybe families need one bigger car, but not 2 or 3. And maybe we should have tiny cars and rent bigger ones when we need to move a bunch of people.
Mustangman:
I have a competitor for the Porsches. The second generation Mazda RX7 2+“2”. A friend had one and the rear “seat” was about 10" deep and 24" wide. The roofline was identical to the standard 2 seater. Any human creature over 36 inches tall would have their cranium in contact with the roof. Toddlers requiring a child seat would not fit as the seat base height would put them in the same uncomfortable position. Also post toddlers requiring a booster seat. The second generation RX7 was a concentrated effort in weight reduction at all cost. Why would they add an ounce for the purpose of lower insurance rates? I remember now. When I added my 1981 first generation RX7 to my State Farm insurance policies it was twice as much as my 1971 Ford Mustang MACH 1 for minimum legal liability insurance. It was $12.50 per month for the Mustang and $25 per month for the RX7. When I asked the clerk why? she very snarkeley replied: “Because it’s an RX7”! I bit my tongue and waited until I got home to call my agent of many years and complain. Not about the price difference as it was displayed on the computer screen but about his employees attitude. He explained that a recent company policy change penalized 2 seat sports cars and promised to have a “talk” with the clerk. I did not volunteer that unless carrying a second passenger I drove my 300hp 3,000lb Mustang with the rear seat folded making it a 2 seat and I was now driving my 2 seat only 112hp 2,400lb RX7 and paying twice as much. At least my 1991 second generation RX7 was a GTU. Two seats, 160hp, and maximum weight saving (2,600lbs) with insurance premiums of $16 per month. I don’t think we will ever understand insurance premiums.
Looking through the specs in the back of CR’s buying guide the only ones with less rear seat legroom than the Sonic were the 911,the Scion IQ,and the MItsubishi I-Miev. Many use these small cars for commuting solo but also for occasional carpool or family use.
We spent a week in Ireland with a Nissan Micra (related to the Versa Note sold here) and after showing the doubters at Budget Rent a Car in Dublin our 3 suitcases fit in the cargo area and even my long legged 6ft frame had more than enough room. It does depend on what you’re used to though. We took some laps around the island of Oahu in a 1986 Mazda B2000 extended cab with my brother and me in those jump seats (both of us 6ft plus) so just about anything now is an improvement.
“Now try to imagine what things would look like if the cars were invisible and the only thing you could see on the road was the people.”
I imagine a whole lot of car accidents
If you don’t know how much distance is between a person, and the rear bumper of that invisible car . . .
A very strange hypothetical situation, in any case
@db4690 Maybe I didn’t say it well. What I was trying to say was that the distance between drivers in a lane of slow, heavy traffic is quite long, maybe 25 feet. Maybe it’s less, but it’s still the length of an average car plus the typical amount of space drivers leave between their car and the car in front. That’s a very sparse scattering of people on a length of road, and not an efficient use of space. If cars were smaller because they only accommodated two passengers many more people would move down the road, even if the cars were going at exactly the same speed as the bigger cars.
I wasn’t complaining about the cars with “fake” rear seats. Like everyone else said, those are a manipulation for various reasons that have nothing to do with utility.
@wentwest A friend of my wife has a Dodge minivan, and the middle seat are always down (kids left home) and the rear seat sits in the garage unused. She runs a lot of errands and is an avid gardener. You might say her van serves as a “panel truck”.
The insurance aspect is a real issue. A 2 seater car, no matter how feeble in the engine compartment, is considered a sports car and commands higher insurance premiums.
2 seat cars are good for commuting, not much else (ignoring the sports cars). So for a small added cost to buy, and to buy gas, I get a LOT more versatility with a 4 seat car. Easy choice.
Wentwest, you made excellent points. Unfortunately, insurance companies see two seat cars as higher risk. I have to wonder if a clarification based on other than the number of seats would do more to encourage (or at least not DIScourage) two seat vehicles.
I was having a discussion with a friend about three wheelers recently too. In NH, a three wheeled vehicle is classified as a motorcycle and requires a motorcycle license to operate. I suspect that’s a common classification criterion. Perhaps a change in this definition would encourage three wheeled efficient vehicles too. I specifically would NOT include CanAm bikes in this category. Those things are nothing but expensive toys for bored testosterone-laden gym rats. They’re not designed for efficiency, only for adrenalin rushes.
“CanAm bikes…are nothing but expensive toys for bored testosterone-laden gym rats.”
A few years ago, one of my sister-law’s nephews (an undereducated, overpaid, testosterone-laden gym rat) bought one of those machines for his daily 80 mile commute, and he bragged to my brother about how much gas he was going to save.
My brother asked, “How are you going to commute on the days when it is raining or snowing?” At that point, the proud new CanAm owner looked blank for a few moments before admitting that he had given no thought to inclement weather before buying his new toy.
Duh!
I have a Miata, as well as a fleet of elderly Honda elite scooters. The insurance on the MIata is not expensive, so maybe the company sees it as different than other 2 seaters. It certainly does not have a big engine or speedy acceleration. I can get a surprising amount of stuff into it when I take it to Costco, and if I put the top down I can pile lots of stuff on the passenger seat.
3 wheel vehicles are likely to be unstable on turns unless they have some form or articulation in the suspension. In California you don’t need a motorcycle license to operate a 3 wheeler, so Can-Am makes a deal about that in its ads. Same for Vespa with its 3 wheeler.
This kind of a discussion ends up in a draw, because it depends on where you live. In older big cities with severe parking problems and constant traffic in tight streets small cars and scooters are really good, and big cars and trucks can be a nuisance. In most of the country that’s not the case, so people buy bigger cars and they are happy with them.