People walk up to us all the time to talk about the Fiat 500. There’s that cuteness thing of course. But as you can tell after a moment or two, it’s also because it’s small.
There’s no visual intimidation. It promises to be cheap. It simplifies, lightens, and makes sensible. It’s smart, not extravagant. It’s efficient, not complicated.
The car is an answer to a question about utility, but it’s also an answer to a question about psychology. And as the smartphones that we hold in our hands every day are telling us, small, cleverly integrated packages make us feel smart and clever ourselves.
The product planners of the car manufacturers seem to be in the business of making things bigger, since their focus groups always check the survey box that indicates a need for more space. But as vehicles as various as the Fiat 500 and Scion iQ have proven to me recently, smallness can be perceived as a virtue, not a handicap.
A lot of people apparently feel the same, since Edmunds.com data indicates that the sales of compact and subcompact cars in the country's top 10 markets have increased between 30 and 70 percent in the last year.
Market Increase in compact car shopping vs. 2010 Increase in subcompact car shopping vs. 2010 Atlanta 41% 35% Boston 28% 59% Chicago 43% 43% Dallas-Fort Worth 44% 70% Houston 48% 44% Los Angeles 37% 58% New York 38% 60% Philadelphia 34% 53% San Francisco 25% 44% Washington, DC 41% 47%
Michael Jordan, Executive Editor, Edmunds.com
_feloniousmonk says:
02:20 PM, 09/13/11
We're essentially a very shallow society, but we've also managed to get the importance of possessions all ass-backwards. Used to be that the things we bought were mere extensions of ourselves, but now we need everything we buy to make some sort of statement about who we would like to be. The advertisers have astutely fostered this and the product-planners have followed their lead. You need a small call, but don't want to be perceived as broke as you actually are? S'alright, we've got many small cars that will proclaim anything but poverty to the world! You be seen as hip, cutting-edge, eco-conscious/concerned and stylish! Nowadays, our personalities are usually just extensions of our things, and not vice versa.
kplacer says:
02:53 PM, 09/13/11
You equate the feeling of driving a Fiat 500 to using a smartphone? But smartphones are about the most worthless, over-hyped, under-deliverers of utility around. They promise all this functionality but do so with a complexity level that means most people don't know how to use more than a fraction of what they promise, and when they do actually get them to do something, it delivers a very compromised version of whatever it may be. I *HATE* smartphones.
Please don't compare the 500 to one of those POS devices, unless it too is a POS.
rotaryboff says:
03:28 PM, 09/13/11
Interesting. I LOVE my smartphone, and it has simplified and enriched my life in ways too numerous to mention.
Coincidentally, I am also a FIAT 500 intender...
firstwagon says:
04:47 PM, 09/13/11
"They promise all this functionality but do so with a complexity level that means most people don't know how to use more than a fraction of what they promise, and when they do actually get them to do something, it delivers a very compromised version of whatever it may be. I *HATE* smartphones."
I like them but then I had no problem at all figuring out everything they can do.
Even my wife who knows nothing about computers mastered her iphone in no time.
I guess I would hate them to if I were struggling with something so user friendly.
93aero says:
07:14 PM, 09/13/11
I've seen about 10 of these in the last week. Its got to be tempting, it covers all the bases of what people want in a car today, and is also something people find trendy and unique. That won't last....
wrinklebump says:
01:46 AM, 09/14/11
i have a theory that smartphones, ostensibly intended to connect us, have to some extent actually made us more solitary creatures.
this being a car messageboard, i wont bloviate for long, but consider this example:
i was in nyc last weekend. i did not have a smartphone. however, i did want to do things -- museums, the nyc public library, central park, empire state, 9/11 memorial, among other things. i had six hours to do see some of these sights, and i would be doing so alone before meeting a friend and her coworkers to get bombed. what follows are two quick scenes to illustrate my argument:
in order to do these things, i had to talk with people. to get from laguardia to manhattan, i had to take a bus. how did i know which bus to take, and where to take it? i asked a janitor who promptly started complaining about eli manning. we went on to have a heated debate about the value of luck in nyc's title run a few years back.
i got on the bus, which dropped me off around 125th street. i had no idea where i was. so, i asked a guy who was part of a troupe of bongo/conga players. he directed me to the subway entrance and told me which train to take, and we had a pretty funny talk wherein he insisted that george jetson had a stake in the responsibility for my laziness regarding my reluctance to walk all the way to midtown.
now, if i had had a phone, i woulda just looked all this shit up, looked at some pictures, and been done with it. but my interactions with strangers, which took place entirely because i lacked access to information that i didnt have (information that, coincidentally, they had), enriched my experience and made my trip to nyc that much more memorable. so i think, with all this information at our fingertips, we we've come to rely less upon other people, and in doing so have cut ourselves off - to an extent - from the people around us.
bodyblue says:
05:18 AM, 09/14/11
Wrinklebum...great post.....very entertaining.
farvy says:
09:15 AM, 09/14/11
Gee, I thought the rise in compact & subcompact sales was due to the fact they are cheap in this bad economy & they get good fuel economy in the face of high gas prices.
+1 Wrinklebump. How did we ever survive without Smartphones?!
wrxmx5 says:
10:03 AM, 09/14/11
"It promises to be cheap. It simplifies, lightens, and makes sensible. It’s smart, not extravagant. It’s efficient, not complicated."
Perhaps but it also looks like an automotive version of Piglet from "Winnie the Pooh".