Interesting. It fascinates me that you ask an engineer the questions and I can understand the answer. Artist, what is he talking about? Which is why I feel the design of stuff is best left to the engineers to get stuff right, then let the artist style it. I think auto design tends to work the other way round. But it is not where the majority of classic microcars, or possibly the best cars of any size, came from. No, do not get muddled up with Ferrari and stuff. I am talking about cars that function above the ability of their competition.
On top of that there is the need to meet stringent crash tests and protect idiots that walk into you. This clearly plays against a small light weight car. I am amazed at the amount of room there is not in modern small cars. So much space is lost to gubbins. The Smart actually wins here, though it fails on gadgets. Oh dear, there are some silly ones, when sensible ones would have aided to the car. That will be those artists again I expect. But the engineers 'manual' version is pathetic. The ability to change the colouring/style with panels is good. No two Smart need be the same. That jazziness gets them noticed. Something a small car needs to achieve to claim its rightful road-space. Sadly the Smart project blinked, and the biggest move from Europe has gone conservative.
I would be interested to know how many Kew class cars were marketed in the USA, We never really had the chance to buy. Now these really show that a small car can be a small big car. Are the Microcars, no. But I think the true microcar is probably unmarketable at the moment. Folk are addicted to excess, display of wealth and are very conservative buyers. But a microcar that has excess, yeah, that might sell (It would not really be a microcar, but don't tell).
The other traditional selling point is price. Ditch the gadgets, drop the price. That ever leaves margins low, though. Selling useless items is a great profit earner. As the man said you have to 'get people to desire' crap. My desire for a modern is nil. So I realise I do not actually need one. I imagine a considerable % of buyers could do the same if they woke up and thought for themselves. That would really shake things up, or get the State to ban old cars for their cor-pirate masters.
