ROMA – Take an old Fiat 500, the 1957 one designed by Dante Giacosa, and place it next to the New 500: you will have a bizarre “matryoshka” effect, as if the first had just come out of the second’s belly. The mythical small car of sixty years ago was in fact 2,970 mm long, 1,320 mm wide and high (curiously the width and height corresponded). The new model brought to its debut in 2007 instead measures 3,546 mm in length by 1,627 mm in width, and 1488 mm high. To make you understand what we are talking about, the old cinquino is practically the same size as today’s Ligier, a fourteen-year-old microcar (2.85 by 1.50 meters). Same effect with the Golf. The first series of 1974 measured 3.705 by 1.610 mm, and was 1390 mm high, while the eighth generation of 2019 grew by half a meter in length and almost 20 cm in width (4284 by 1789 mm, with a height of 1456 mm ).
In short, over the years cars have undergone a treatment of anabolics that have made them grow out of all proportion. And the phenomenon can also be tackled by crossing the data, not only between the same car from two different eras. Today’s Golf, for example, is as long as an Alfetta, the historic sedan that Alfa Romeo began producing in 1972, destined for law enforcement and often used as a “blue car”. We could go on and on with comparisons like these, comparing yesterday’s sedans with today’s small cars, and having fun meter in hand.
“It is a phenomenon that began in the 1960s, when the increase in traffic volume forced the car manufacturers, leading Volvo and Mercedes, to question safety”, explains Lorenzi Preti, design professor at the ISSAM, the Higher Institute of Automobile Science of Modena. “And safety means size and structure, at the expense of the habitable volume. From there began the search for monocoques that were more efficient in the event of a collision “.
The monocoque is the supporting structure of modern cars, it is made of deformable pieces in the front and rear and of rigid parts on the sides, where the passengers are seated. “The houses realized that it was necessary to make more robust monocoques to stay in the European and American parameters, especially since the brands of the Old Continent started selling their cars overseas. The following decade therefore led to the first increase in size, first thinking of non-deformability and then, in the 1980s, of progressive deformation, to take away part of the energy of the impact from the occupants ”.
But it is not only the safety aspect that has caused the measurements of cars to rise over time. After the economic boom, the population itself begins to grow in height. The generation of the 1980s exceeds that of their fathers by at least 10 centimeters, a phenomenon that continues today. To understand, however, the reasons why a Citroen DS – which seemed gigantic, which to get around the city you had to be the ace of the parking lot – was actually 4 meters and 80 centimeters long in its first version but scarce one meter and 80 wide, it is necessary to resort to the social aspect, of which the automobile is one of the most characteristic expressions of the 20th century.
“In the 1990s, the houses realized that the larger the vehicle, the greater the image the driver offered of himself,” explains Petri. “In the meantime, the era of SUVs has begun, where height has also been added to length and width, to dominate the road over the others. Interior volumes have also grown, although not in proportion to the bodywork: more comfortable and electrified seats have been made, more airbags have been installed, dashboards have had to justify the high cost of the vehicle, and all this has contributed to the increase in external dimensions.” In short, the bigger the better. Just keep scrolling through the endless list of examples. One of them all: the old and the new Mini. That of 1959 was 3050 mm long and 1400 wide. The latest restyling exceeds four meters in length and one meter and 70 in width (404 by 173 cm). More maxi than mini.
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