Some people (like me) are comfortable in an econobox. Not everyone needs big plush seats to be comfortable.
Nobody should have to be uncomfortable, but if someone is comfortable with an econobox that meets all his needs, that usually makes it the smarter choice. If you’re not comfortable in an econobox, that, by definition, eliminates it as the best choice for you. Nobody should sacrifice comfort for efficiency.
Honda Civic. DUH!
7 pages of gibberish about bizoarro defunct cars,
and no one thinks of the most obvious and popular HONDA CIVIC ???
H O N D A
C I V I C
FTW.
@UsedEconobox2UsedMBW
Dude . . .
Did you not detect the sarcasm?
For pity’s sake, I said “this is a race to the bottom”
Speaking of Suzuki and world cars, I owned a 4 dr Suzuki Sidekick for a few years. It was awesome off road, had a very intelligently designed and roomy interior( for it’s size), it’s ergonomics we’re good, the equipment inside functioned well. Though I had issues on the interstate at speed, around town it handled great. But parts were ridiculously hard to come by and the thing was always, way under powered. Except for getting someone who could get parts easily for it, I would have today. It was a “world” car if it were that part of the world with unpaved roads…excellent !
I still maintain that the true people’s car is one that someone else has thrown away after all the depreciation has occurred. And I really believe that you can pick up a used luxury car for less than a new stripped-down econobox and not only will you be more comfortable, but it will likely last longer and cost you less than the Aveos of the world…
Perhaps a list of 15 semi-modern “peoples’ cars” cars can be found if you type “15 Beater Cars That Won’t Disappoint”. I would have pasted the link but I think posts with links are filtered out by the site. Many of the cars suggested here make the list. Of course the Civic, Corolla, Sentra, Cavalier, and the like made the list as did one of my favorites, the Geo Metro. One of my friends owned a Kia Spectra like the one pictured as his beater and loved the car. It was a lightweight POS like the Metro but got like 45mpg and was fun to drive. A guy who worked for him couldn’t make it to work one day because his car broke down and my friend sold him this car. He still regrets getting rid of this one. The guy ended up moving to a different town working for the same company and soon sold the little car. My friend heard he was later fired because he could never make it to work because of an unreliable car. He had sold the good one and kept the bad one.
As for the suggestion of the Suzuki Swift, this is the same exact car as the Geo Metro. They did offer a few sportier models in the Swift including DOHC and turbo varieties. They also offered a Pontiac Firefly based on the same design in Canada with a few different options.
If you want to go even farther back in time, the Chevy Sprint is basically the previous generation of the Suzuki based economy cars and they also had a 3cyl. They made a turbo version which is still sought after by people who like to drive these types of little cars. There was a year or two where they were transitioning to the Geo brand where this was called the Chevy Sprint Metro.
Aren’t all cars owned by people, or is people strictly a plural noun meaning that only cars that have more than one owner can be called “people’s cars”?
Popeple’s car means Volkwagen in German and refers to working class Germans in the 30s who could not afford cars. Hitler’s propaganda machine hit a home run with the concept and the public lapped it up! Hitler admired Henry Ford for doing this in America.
Fiat is close.
I think @oblivion and @docnick are getting to the core of what a peoples car was. The fact that after WWI, the economy was shot and there were not many used cars for people to buy nor affordable new cars. Today, in the US, the “people” can buy a serviceable car for $500 on up. Can’t afford a new car? Buy a used car. They come in all sizes and colors and price ranges. Take your pick. So the true peoples car now is all the used cars out there.
@UsedEconobox2UsedBMW,
As an owner of a 6th generation Honda Civic, I have to admit the 7th, 8th, and 9th generations of the Civic are not “people’s” cars. They are simply too expensive and come with too many bells and whistles as standard equipment to be classified that way. In addition, the Civic keeps getting bigger and bigger. A true “people’s” car should be small and fuel efficient.
@Docnick 9:42AM Popeple's car means Volkwagen in German and refers to working class Germans in the 30s who could not afford cars. Hitler's propaganda machine hit a home run with the concept and the public lapped it up! Hitler admired Henry Ford for doing this in America.
OK, maybe we should call them proletariat cars, to distinguish them from the bourgeoisie cars driven by rich people.
Tata sales have been very disappointing in India. They haven’t been anywhere near their projections and have had to reduce output substantially. There are several models that sell better. Speculation has been that nobody likes to look like a cheapskate. People in India who can afford any kind of car are middle class and moving up. They’d rather be seen in a real car (something driven by people in Japan or Korea) than a Nano, which says you saved every rupee for years and this is all you could afford.
In the US, various models have had that problem. The Yugo, certainly, along with it being wretched. The Aveo (now Spark) and Kia Rio in more recent years. If you see someone driving an Aveo, do you think there goes a frugal driver with their priorities in the right place, or do you wonder if they’ll get the loan paid off before they lose their low-paying job? Do you discreetly check out the driver, knowing she’ll almost certainly be young, with steong odds she comes from some ethnic minority group (possibly one that’s a majority in that area.) Do you assume she may be the only one in her family to have bought a new car, with the rest driving beaters? I do. She has pride in her clothes and her things and wasn’t going to be seen driving in that brown Alero any longer than she had to. So now she has a cheerful blue Aveo (or Spark) and everything works and it’s clean. This piece of fiction (based on a true story) brought to you by Ford. They don’t want downscale buyers in their nice dealers so send them over to check out that cute little car across the street at the Chevy dealer.
I will look at it differently. For years, the people’s car for the retired group of people was the Crown Victoria. The people’s car for the Northeast we have kidded around here before as being the Subaru. So, it seems there are people’s car’s for regions and segments of the population.
The mom’s people’s “car” is the minivan while the well healed professioal, the BMW. A lot of people who used to identify themselves with groups of people’s also had their own car’s. The hippies had their VW vans as much for use as a billboard as it was for practicality and smoking pot behind mobile closed doors.
Maybe statistically, the numbers might not bear these choices out, but at least in the eyes of the observer they do identify these groups of people with these cars. And, those who wanted to belong, certainly might have aspired to own them. The super rich; the Rolls and Bentley. The groups don’t have to be large in this thought, but can be exclusive.
Maybe we should face facts. A true “people’s car” won’t sell in today’s market. By the OP’s definition, a “people’s car” is a modern version of the VW Beetle, and by that definition, the Geo Metro qualified, but it’s no longer in production. The Metro wasn’t extremely popular when it was in production. It gained most of its popularity when gas prices spiked years after it was no longer being produced.
If the car consumer market wanted a “people’s car” there would be a clear car we could identify as one, and we wouldn’t be debating this issue. There is simply no room (demand) in the current American car market for a stripped down fuel efficient economy car, which tend to be low margin products.
The people's car for the Northeast we have kidded around here before as being the Subaru.
Peoples car of MAINE…For some reason Maine sells an inordinate number of Subs compared to the rest of the country. I don’t see a lot of Subs in Southern NH or when I go skiing in the White Mountains. But I get up to Maine they’re all over the place.
@MikInNh
Here is the genesis of their Success in Maine. They did succeed for a couple of reasons. First, The “Quirk Boys” started out selling Subarus. at what they called Village Subaru, a little hole in the wall deaership by Kenduskeag Stream in Bangor. They actually sold a lot of these when they were quite crappy but built a very solid reputation in quality but inexpensive service aft the sale. They would give customers free fenders when they saw how early new the factory ones would rust out. They even guided some customers through the installations. It was good will like this that started them off.
Secondly, When Subaru was bailed out by the Japanese and alowed to have freedom of more exclusivity to Awd technology to help save the company, they began to take off in Maine. At one time, the Quirk Bros. had the leading dealership of Subarus IN THE WORLD. So successful were they, the Brighton model of the Subaru was expressly made for the frugal Mainer with an option package of the basic three only…air, cruise and stereo and nothing more as a package. They took their successful Subaru reputation and bought several other dealerships including GM, Hyundai, Mercedes Benz and others.
They are one of the more successful family enterprises in the state. Now, with dad and gramps retired the brothers run the dealerships. I had three of them in school and all were great kids. My dad was the uncle of a third owner partner who managed the service epartments for all of their franchizes. My dad got his car for their cost and never paid a cent for ANY service on the car he bought there till he died. Unfortunately, that’s as far up the family chain good will extended.
So, the Quirks were single handedly responsible for Subarus early success in Maine which later spead throughout New England as they gained in popularity. Remember, many more are sold throughout New England then in Maine now. But, with only a million residents in Maine, it just seems like evey over person owns one.
Subaru use to make a LL Bean version. You don’t get much more Maine then LL Bean.
Great store. Haven’t been to the one in Freeport in a while. But I shop from them all the time.
Although now that the Supreme Courts ruling that states can start charging taxes on out-of-state internet sales…I know LL Bean more then once threatened Maine to move to NH if they ever did.
Maine’s in a tough position. With very little industrial base since many of the paper mills close, makes the tax base a problem, even for it’s population. Couple that with an aging population in need of care and LL Bean looks inviting. Trains, I hear will begin running from Boston to Freeport. That woud be good for LLBean. It also opens Boston up for Mainers a little more. It’s a tough drive to Boston and back in a day from central Maine for games, but doable with train service.
Bean is great. I was struggling to order water shoes and out of season sandals for a cruise this winter. LL Bean was one of the few ( re, only) store I could get them…2 days later. They must have a huge year round inventory either in house or stored at their suppliers. They make money indirectly for just about everyone. I would like them to sell cars…imagine the clientele. Pay top dollar for sure, but turn it in anytime for a full refund credit on purchase of a new one. Yehhh.