h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I believe the Mini is the smallest they could get it with all of the new safety requirements, like crumple zones. I agree though, they make my eyes to a bit funny when I see one!

The Mini is still smaller than the behemoths on the road.

Well, then there's the Mini Cooper Countryman. It still qualifies as a "compact SUV" but here's the specs.


Dimensions: 170″ L x 72″ W x 61″ H
Cargo volume: 15.89 ft³, 49.09 ft³ with seat area
Curb weight: 3,300 to 3,629 lbs

Notice that it HAS cargo space. That's not very Mini-like.

Oh, and that gibberish in the dimensions indicated inches. H2G2 doesn't recognize closing quote marks.



Dimensions: 170" L x 72" W x 61" H

My Vauxhall Astra.

174 x 79 x 59

4 longer 5 wider (but suspect mine includes mirrors) 2 lower.

And weirdly, the BMW 3 series although 10 inches longer than a Mini CC is both lower and narrower.

(http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=mini+cooper+countryman+dimensions&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&ei=R-e9WNqAPevR8gf6z4igCQ)

For what it's worth.

PP.

My steed is named Brandi the Grape, a deeply purple 2014 Chevy Trax. Curbside, she weighs 1,382 kg (3,047 lbs), and measures 4.28 metres long (14.04 feet), 1.78 metres wide (5.83 feet), and 1.67 metres tall (5.5 feet) . . .

Not quite as spacious as a Ford Bronco II that I had from 1986, nor as high off of the road, but a very comfortable ride at any speeds up to 145 or so kph (90 mph)

I've never owned a particularly cool car. As long as it gets me from point A to point B without burning a hole in my pocket, I'm fine.

Subarus are cool, right? Subaru station wagons especially, right?

Wait, don't you folks in the UK call them estate cars? That sounds fancy. Like I can drive across my estate in my estate car. Yes, that's cool.

My first three cars were Subarus. They were slow, underpowered, and funny-looking, but also cheap and economical to drive.

I'm on my third, an Outback. It's now 20 years old. I traded my last one in prematurely. It only had 147000+ miles after only 7 years. It was running great, but I had a new job and wanted more room for stuff. My first was built in the late '70s. No car maker made good cars in the late '70s. But that one was good enough for me. I drove it into the ground. I couldn't even sell it. My dad said he wasn't going to tow it home from my college so I had to sell it there. I ended up having to pay a salvage yard to take it. The engine was still good, but it had a busted heater and a broken tie rod so it was undriveable.

" The engine was still good"



Ah, those horizontal engines.....

Since my first steed in 1984, I've brought in 9 vehicles - only one was factory new. The rest were as little as 3 years pre-owned or as much as 12 years used. One Oldsmobile, two Fords, one Pontiac and five Chevs. None would have been considered "cool", but some were definitely more fun.

The main reason there have been so many is that my bride was finally licensed in 1993, so we've been a two-car household since around 1998.

I had two cars previous to my first Subaru, both were also built in '78, both were crap. The first was a Plymouth branded Mitsubishi Sapporo. Eventually it couldn't get over a small overpass. The second was a Buick Skylark. As bad as my Japanese cars from '78 were, this American car was even worse. Every gap between body parts was wide enough to stick a pencil into. Every bit of plastic degraded quickly in sunlight and turned brittle. The paint faded quickly and the upholstery even quicker. Everything about it seemed like it was built by someone who really didn't like his job. I wrecked it and that was good because I got to repaint it. The original "Columbia blue" paint looked more "baby blue" to me. I repainted it charcoal grey metallic. It almost looked good then. Here's a pic of the same model but mine had a white "Landau roof" rather than the black pictured here.

http://www.novaresource.org/gallery4/78ruthl1.jpg

The folks at Jalopnik found a '78 Subaru wagon to review. This one is in much better shape than the one I had when I got it. The previous owner of mine was another student who got in at least one wreck and she was ignorant of maintenance schedules and blew the original engine by never checking or adding oil. Mine was a 5 speed front wheel drive. The one in this review is a 4 speed 4WD. I'm really impressed by how clean this one is and I'm jealous of those cloth seat covers she had made. The vinyl seats of mine were torturous in Texas summers.

http://jalopnik.com/5933797/1978-subaru-gl-wagon-the-jalopnik-classic-review

This car gets better mileage now than my '98 Outback does now. Of course my engine is nearly twice as large as this one's. I'd like to think someone repaired my original Subaru, and that it's still on the road, but I suspect it was crushed for scrap. I am fairly confident my second Subaru, a '90 4 door Loyale sedan, is probably still on the road. That car was bullet proof. I got hit twice by SUVs and after repairs it was running great when I traded it in.

I am still frequently amazed at the get up and go that newer and so-much-small engines have. It used to be that you wanted a minimum 3.something litre machine for serious highway travel - now 1.6 and 1.9 will do amazing things. Precision timings and injections of 4 ports to each cylinder do wonderful things for performance.

My first car was a 1978 gray Subaru four-door sedan. Not much pep going up hills.

Heh... The Old Gray Subaru...

http://youtu.be/Y7kJUIRBcqI

I never thought I'd see another Subaru 360
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_360

I've heard of people who bought 360s and dragged them behind their campers or motor homes when they moved between trailer camps. Once the motor home was installed in a camp, the 360 was used for getting around town.

I've never seen one before. Sweet!

My last Subaru was a blue Justy, the most perfect car I've ever had. They stopped making them in 1990. In some countries you can buy the similar Trezia, but not in my country.