It seems that within the past decade, Americans have developed a fascination with small cars. This may possibly have been started with Austin Powers’ British-flag painted Mini Cooper. Once American’s caught sight of how “Shag-A-Delic” they could be in a tiny car it opened up a whole new market. On roadways once dominated by an excess of Hummers and Escalades small cars are becoming increasingly popular.
Before the Mini Cooper if someone wanted to save gas, and try to pimp themselves, they would have had to do so in a Geo Metro or a V.W. Beetle. Now there are even more auto makers getting into the small car market. Fiat, Kia, Ford and Honda are just some of the companies getting into the subcompact car ring. This could be blamed on a new trend or it could just be a reflection of our cultures all-or-nothing attitude.
For some reason Americans think that if an issue or problem arises, we must go to the extreme opposite of what we have been doing in order to “fix” the problem. Soccer-moms, rap stars and those with just too much money drove-up the demand for gigantic sport utility vehicles. Having all that room and power was a little slice of what made it great to be an American (when we didn’t look at our Visa balance each month).
It was a simpler time of having whatever we wanted and as much as we wanted without thinking about the consequence. Once the credit crunch started, even many of the people looking for a bad credit car loan would put aside budget and reason to get a vehicle that is what they “must” have, rather than what makes sense. Then the price of gas started rise and we all freaked out. People started selling off all their large vehicles, the government offered incentives for us to trade them in and the market shifted.
While the giant vehicles we grew accustomed to seeing were probably unnecessary for most of those that owned them, having a backseat is something that would come in handy for most of us during the ownership of a vehicle. Keeping the same useful functions of a vehicle while changing how that vehicle moves or works makes sense. The development of hybrid vehicles seemed to answer the call of high gas prices. The only problem with hybrid vehicles was that they were so expensive that it would take forever to make up the cost with the savings on gas.
Since hybrids were only attainable by the rich and highly pretentious, people started thinking that BIG was bad and that the only solution was to buy some incredibly tiny car. The website for Smart Cars states that over 96 million Americans drive to work alone, that is why they got rid of the backseats, which is fine if all you do is go to work or only have one friend. Although if you are driving one of these toy cars, having any friends may be something to brag about. This small car obsession is yet another example of people needing to stop and think for a minute before hopping on some trend that is merely a knee-jerk reaction to conditions of the moment.
As a writer for New Start Auto Loans the guest contributor who created this article writes about everything cars and everything auto finance. Though bad credit car loan articles are my specialty I try not to get tied to one subject, I write about anything I think is important. – Much thanks to Carol for doing most of the work on this one.
