First off let me say that I am not one to generally thinks about micro cars. My dream practical ride would be a black Subaru WRX, or an Audi S4, and my favorite car is the Ferrari 550 Maranello/575M. Hopefully the WRX or Audi will become a reality in the upcoming months with me starting a new job at the Cannon Research Center at Carolinas Medical in Charlotte. With gas prices going up though there seems to be a big micro car movement nowadays. The Scion xA and xB seemed to be the first to try and make driving these 30-40 mpg cars cool. Honda released the Fit a little bit ago, Nissan has the Versa, and now Toyota has brought the Yaris aka the Vitz in Japan to the states. Primedia Publications has even devoted a new magazine called Siphon to the tuning of these cars. Do you guys think tuning these cars will ever really take off in the future here in America, where we generally think bigger is better?

The Vitz is pretty popular in Japan, especially the RS model, which I believe is the only one that has disc brakes in the back. I think it'd be pretty cool to take a turbo Yaris out on a road course like Road Atlanta. Most of these cars weigh only a little over 2000 lbs. Some specially tuned factory versions of these cars maybe just the thing to get these cars more accepted by car enthusiasts in America.

4/29/2007 8:39:08 PM

Short answer... NO

4/29/2007 8:54:31 PM

too much text to read

4/29/2007 10:33:21 PM

i'm pretty sure the scion has proven that with proper marketing doing this sort of thing is at least viable for promoting the brand if not profitable.

i don't think we're going to see an onslaught of high performance models though. at the most maybe packages with some intake/exhaust enhancements, suspension/brakes, etc. it's just too small of a niche. people either care about economy/size or performance. typically not a big helping of both.

bottom line, this is still america. by and large we're still the same gas guzzling drive the biggest most powerful vehicle you can country. changes are happening, but i think it'll be MANY years before things like this really catch on, if ever.

30-40 mpg cars are nothing new. the japanese have been doing it for decades. they're just finally adjusting their marketing strategies with these offspring trendy brands to bring in another group of people. not unlike what all of the big three did in the 40's/50's/60's.

[Edited on April 29, 2007 at 10:46 PM. Reason : .]

4/29/2007 10:42:55 PM