, Columnist
Your Car Shouldn’t Look Like It Pumped Iron at the Gym
We need a comeback for small cars, with a push from policymakers.
The Fiat 500 at the 1959 Paris car show.
Source: AFP/Getty Images
Smaller cars are an obvious fix for crowded cities, limited resources and a warming planet. Yet they’ve become an endangered species, as tougher regulations made them uneconomical to produce and we gravitated towards muscular SUVs.
A continent that built iconic, utilitarian and wildly popular city cars, like the Fiat Cinquecento and Mini in the 1950s, needs to make tiny cars appealing and affordable again. Smarter rulemaking and financial incentives can help.