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Comment by drewg123 | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure that I believe their assertion that cars have gotten lighter. Perhaps the real land-yacht monstrosities have been weeded out (and replaced with SUVs). But it seems like comfort and safety concerns, coupled with more power and better fuel economy have been causing equivalent cars to become heavier (and more expensive) over time.

As an example, one of my first cars was an 84 VW GTI. It weighed ~2000lbs. Try to find a car that light today. There is a nice comparison of that car and a modern VW GTI here: http://www.automobilemag.com/news/then-vs-now-1984-volkswage...

I think the same is probably true of most 70s and 80s economy cars vs today's cars. Today's equivalents are much heavier, but much safer, and much more pleasant to drive

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Car models move upscale as they get older and newer models slide in under it. The old 80's Honda Accord is physically smaller than today's Toyota Civic. The spot that was occupied by the Civic is now occupied by the Fit. A 1996 Honda Civic hatchback was about 2600lbs which is the same as a 2016 Honda Fit.

Where does one buy this "Toyota Civic" of which you speak?

The Fit has done a pretty good job - 10 years and 2 generations, and it has only added about 100 lbs to the curb weight.

Ha! Why in the world did I type that? A good car to see the progression of weight is a that hasn't changed market segment like a Porsche 911. Car&Driver did this up through 2011:

http://blog.caranddriver.com/porsche-911-generations-the-leg...

> Where does one buy this "Toyota Civic" of which you speak?

With the right badges, type-r stickers, and engine swaps - anything is possible...

This is so true. My first car was an '86 Honda Civic with a manual transmission; I drove it till it was about to fall apart, and loved the way it felt.

I later bought a manual transmission Fit because it felt and drove EXACTLY like my beloved Civic, but wasn't old and crappy. The way it shifted just felt perfect. Wonder how long it will take till the Fit starts expanding.

Former manual Fit owner here. I dearly loved that car. Fun to drive, transmission felt great, and there was never a time I couldn't find some way to fit whatever I needed hauling inside of it, and maintenance is on par with the lowest of any car. If I ever go back to driving, I sincerely hope they're still making them.

My 1999 Camaro Z28: 320 HP and ~3,400 pounds

My 2016 Camaro 2SS: 457 HP and ~3,700 pounds

Well, half-right at least...

That said, IMO that 2016 car drives like a budget Porsche Cayman while the 1999 car was a glorious tire-smoking muscle car. Ironically, I get slightly worse mileage out of the 2016 edition (22 vs 25 mpg).

Why would that be ironic? It has almost 1.5x the horsepower.

Porsche's are more known for handling than straight line speed. So I am readying the OP's comment to mean the newer versions ride and handling are MUCH improved over its predecessor.

I read it as the 2016 car being a pussified dentist mobile while the older one was a "glorious tire-smoking muscle car".

Even the use of the word "glorious" implies that he enjoyed the older one better. People don't buy Camaros for the handling, even if it may have been improved.

Hey, another member of the two-Camaro club! I had a 1996 Z28 automatic and a 2000 SS 6-speed. How do you like the 2016 (apart from its Cayman-like ride)?

Love it to death! And I've driven both the current Challenger (didn't like) and the Mustang (more practical, but not as fun). I actively chose the Camaro over a Cayman because of the price difference and over a Corvette because of the blind spot indicators and better storage space.

Well F150s dropped a couple of hundred pounds go to aluminum. The Chevy Volt; I own the second generation; is three hundred pounds lighter.

Now if you go back twenty plus years or more before the age of crush points and advanced passenger safety systems both passive and active, yeah you can find your lighter weight cars. Cars which won't handle a head on with a car two sizes smaller.

Weight is one reason why manufacturers are loathe to commit all out for BEV, that thousand pounds of battery not only takes an hour to charge fully it weighs the same with or without a charge and imparts little range (sorry but if your range starts with a 1 or 2 its commuter range)

now take into account that many nameplates moved up in size classification. Accords certainly were not mid sized when they came out and even Chryslers minivan if not Honda's first weren't very big.

Efficiency gains are certainly there but much is lost with the way people drive.

Do you like the 2nd gen volt? :0

Agreed - the idea that modern cars are in aggregate lighter than the stuff from even the 80s/90s is laughable. I was really enjoying this article right up until the end, where instead of taking average data for car weights they simply compared two models of Camaro that buck the trend.

Granted cars have gotten much safer, but much of that is due to increased crash regulations forcing car manufacturers to make modern cars much larger to account for the crumple zones etc that make them much better at protecting occupants as well as pedestrians in accidents. This in turn is a major factor in why cars are so often much, much heavier today than before. Colin Chapman is probably turning in his grave!

Economy cars have gotten heavier, largely due to safety concerns. Bigger cars have gotten lighter.

So perhaps it would be fair to say that vehicle weights are converging on the low-mid 3000lb range.

Counter point, my 97 Town Car weighed 500 lbs less then my 2011 Crown Victoria.

The new BMW M5 is 4400 lbs. 30 years ago the BMW M5 was 3300 lbs.

The new BMW M5 is also closer to the size of a 7 series from 30 years ago. Additionally, even with AWD being added it's 200lbs lighter than the last gen was. Cars are certainly heavier on the whole than they used to be, but lightening them is starting to happen again and they're much safer than any car from decades past.

Yeah, my 79 BMW 528 was positively tiny compared to current models.

I also greatly preferred its' handling. Newer BMWs feel (to me) similar to driving my parents' Crown Vic (a comment that irritated the BMW dealer considerably).

The e28 M5 is more comparable to a 1 series now.

The e28 has a shorter wheelbase than the 1 series sedan (but is longer overall due to its stylish 80's big overhangs...) It is also narrower than the 1 series.

A new Fiat 500, Chevy Spark, or Mitsubishi Mirage have weight and performance similar to your old VW GTI. A new GTI is much bigger and despite the name has no real relation to the 1984 model.

> A new GTI is much bigger and despite the name has no real relation to the 1984 model.

Agreed, it's safer, considerably faster and much more luxurious. It is also priced a lot higher.

> It is also priced a lot higher.

Taking into account inflation, it's only priced slightly higher. 8400 dollars from 1984 becomes something like $19500. Which would get you a Honda Fit, which is probably a lot more similar to that old GTI.

Cars are safer and more comfortable, but the idea that cars are becoming bigger and heavier is more due to marketing pressure that forces car models to become "better" each generation.

The closest today to a mk1 golf/polo is probably the "up". having been in both, the interior space is very close to the golf, the boot is slightly smaller than the original polo. There's even a 120hp turbo version, with slightly better performance than the original golf GTI :)

What assertion that cars have gotten lighter?

The article only references gas mileage improvements, which are substantial.

My 2015 Taurus weighs over 4000 lbs @.@

I have made this argument before on the internet and I have learned that it is a European vs American perspective.

American cars in the 70s and 80s were monsters. Definitely heavier than modern cars.

For example, here are 10 popular cars in the US from 1984. http://www.caranddriver.com/features/1984-10best-cars-1984-h...

    Audi 5000s: 2850-3100 lbs
    Dodge Daytona: 2830 lbs
    Honda Accord: 2300 lbs
    Honda Prelude: 2220 lbs
    Mazda 626: 2220 lbs
    Pontiac 6000STE:  3000 lbs
    Pontiac Fiero: 2580 lbs
    Porsche 944: 2830 lbs

On the heavy side, no?

Then again, the best selling car in the US in 2016 is the Toyota Camry which is 3,245 to 3,480 lbs so I guess I'm wrong. Maybe US cars were monsters in the 70's then?

But those monsters have been replaced with SUVs, which are just as heavy, if not heavier.

Eg, the 1977 Ford LTD Country Squire Wagon had a curb weight of 4500lbs. It has been replaced by SUVs like the Expedition, with a curb weight of 5500lbs.

Most of the cars you listed are the small side of the ones you'd see on the road in the US in the 80's.

I'm in Canada, and although I wasn't very old in the 80's, I remember seeing lots of Caprice Classics and Crown Victorias, which were around 3500 pounds, possibly more? My family have a Chevy Malibu wagon, which was a mid-size car but was definitely 3000+ lbs. Smaller cars were starting to become more popular, but there were still lots of monsters around.

So there were lots of heavy cars roaming the US and Canada in the 80s - but a new car of equivalent weight will usually use a lot less fuel, and be a lot more pleasant to drive.

Don't forget 'car' is a rather arbitrary category. The car > minivan > SUV 'soccer mom' transition added these beasts:

  Infiniti QX80 – 5,633 pounds
  Toyota Sequoia – 5,730 pounds
  Toyota Land Cruiser – 5,765 pounds
  Lincoln Navigator – 5,830 pounds
  Lexus LX 570 – 6,000 pounds

The Toyota Land Cruiser is not like the others, it's popular with militant groups. And has been in production since 1951.

Meh. The Chevy Suburban has been in near continuous production since 1929. The gap? When they used the factories that made them to turn out tanks for WWII.

That's a connection more or less in name only. Much like the connection between a military hummer and an H3. The 1950 FJ and BJ was a jeep knockoff with a cloth roof. https://www.fj.co/blog/history-of-the-toyota-fj-series/ http://www.toyota-global.com/showroom/vehicle_heritage/landc...

The FJ40 from 1960 is somewhat comparable, but weighed 1/2 (3263 lbs) what the modern beast weighs.

The FJ60 (http://tlc4x4.com/fj60.htm#sthash.nB2cpi4h.dpbs) from 1981 was even closer and heavy at 4246 lbs, but again still 1,500 lb lighter than the current version.

> On the heavy side, no?

No. Car weights in America fell dramatically after the 1973 oil crisis, reached a low point in the mid 1980s, and have been rising since. Here are the 2017 Car & Driver 10 best

  BMW M2 3450
  Chevy Bolt 3563
  Chevy Camaro 3883
  Chevy Corvette Grand Sport 3428
  Honda Accord 3336
  Porsche 718 Cayman 2988
  VW Golf GTI 3027

Ah ok so 1984 was pretty much the worst year to look at when finding heavy cars? That explains a lot :)

Wow, a Fiero weighed 2580 LB? That must have been before it caught fire.

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