Talk:Downsize (automobile)

Despite What Advertising Said GM Downsizing Seriously Impacted Interior Space According to Data Books

Since the article was incorrect in asserting that GM's downsizing did not seriously impact interior space, I've changed it to reflect the truth. For example here are the usual facts for four door Oldsmobile 98s (which can easily be found in sales brochures and data books):

1971-1976

Headroom f/r 39.3/38.2

Legroom f/r 42.4/41.1

Shoulder room f/r 64.3/63.4

Luggage cap. (cu. ft.) 22.0

1977-1984

Headroom f/r 39.3/38.0

Legroom f/r 42.2/40.9

Shoulder room f/r 60.6/60.5

Luggage cap. (cu. ft.) 20.3

The EPA has published annual fuel economy guides since 1978. These guides categorize cars based on "interior space" which is defined as the sum of passenger volume and trunk or cargo volume. For example a midsize car has 110 to 119 cubic feet of interior space and a full size has 120 or more. Passenger volume is computed by finding the product of headroom, legroom, and shoulder room for both front and rear, converting each to cubic feet, rounding to the nearest cubic foot and then summing them.

For example the 1977-1984 Oldsmobile 98 has 39.3x42.2x60.6 = 100,502.7 cubic inches of passenger room in front. Dividing this by 1728 cubic inches per cubic feet yields 58.2 cubic feet of front passenger room. It has 38.0x40.9x60.5 = 94,029.1 cubic inches of passenger room in rear. Dividing this by 1728 cubic inches per cubic feet yields 54.4 cubic feet of passenger room. Rounding to the nearest foot and adding them yields 112 cubic feet of passenger volume.

Now turn to any 1978-1984 EPA fuel economy guide and what you'll usually find is this for a 4 door Oldsmobile 98:

BODY TYPE/INTERIOR SPACE PASSENGER/TRUNK OR CARGO(CU.FT.) 4DR-112/20

EPA fuel economy guides obviously did not exist in 1971-1976 but repeating this calculation for a 1971-1976 Oldsmobile 98 yields 120 cubic feet of passenger volume. Thus the interior space of a four door 1977-1984 Oldsmobile 98 is 112 + 20 = 132 cubic feet whereas the interior space of a four door 1971-1976 Oldsmobile 98 is 120 + 22 = 142 cubic feet. Given that the ranges between size categories in the EPA guides is 10 cubic feet a 10 cubic foot difference is hypothetically sufficient to put them in entirely different size categories.

The main reason for the difference is clearly shoulder room and the difference between 64.3 inches of shoulder room and 60.6 inches is dramatically obvious to anyone who has seen both cars. It's also why it's width that makes a roomy car roomy and not length.

This also underscores the fact you cannot shorten a car by nearly foot, make it narrower by over 3 inches, lose over 800 pounds and not lose interior room.

I know that the GM ads of the time pushed the idea that the 1977 full size cars were just as roomy despite the drastic downsizing. This usually involved mentioning (trivial) increases in headroom or legroom from the previous year. (Interestingly, by odd coincidence, most full size GM models experienced correspondingly small decreases in headroom or legroom in the two years before the downsized models were unveiled.) However, nobody took it seriously then because anyone could see that there was a substantial decrease in room. And besides all of the interior dimensions were published in the sales brochures and data books for anyone to see.

I can only guess that someone has an agenda and is bent on repeating a 33 year old corporate sales campaign. It is a vain hope of mine that wikipedia will someday be a source of factual historical automotive information.

Sadowski (talk) 21:04, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Chrysler Section

I've made changes to the Chrysler section that clarify the true situation with respect to full size models. Chrysler was in serious financial shape in the mid to late 1970s and unlike GM or Ford could not afford to design a downsized full size model from the ground up. Instead the R-bodies produced from 1979-1981 were essentially stretched mid-sized cars that qualified as full sized by EPA standards. Once Chrysler stopped making the R-bodies, they effectively abandoned the full size market, and would not return until 1990.

Sadowski (talk) 21:30, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

External links modified

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