Lately I’ve started walking into things. Not because I’m clumsy, but because I seem to have gained weight and have somehow gotten wider than I’m realising. I'm becoming horizontally challenged. Even though I’m slowly making my way towards being able to pull off a convincing Santa, I’m still trying to squeeze into clothes that are a little too small. Most noticeably when I tried to squeeze my dad-bod belly into one of my favourite green shirts, which, when buttoned up, looked like something the Hulk's clothes do mid-transformation. It seems, then, that I am wider than before and need to adjust things to fit that, because the other option is exercise and healthy eating, and I don’t have time for that.
I’m noticing a very similar thing is happening in the world of motoring as well. It seems that over the last few years even the most compact of cars have been on mega-bulking diets, getting taller and wider than ever. Even cars that used to be real compact city biff-abouts are now the same size as bungalows, and now every car is trying to look like some sort of overinflated SUV. Much of the size comes from the fact that modern cars are packed to the gills with safety features and creature comforts.
Take the Mini. When the original Mini launched in 1959, it was just 3.05 metres long and 1.45 metres wide. The newest electric MINI Cooper, however, is 3.86 metres long and 1.76 metres wide. That's 81cm longer, 31cm wider and around 55 percent more car by footprint. And it’s the same story for pretty much every single new car.
Even my Hyundai i40, built back in 2014, occasionally feels like I’m driving around in a Sunseeker yacht, being a surprising 2.1 metres wide. Looking out over the bonnet feels like standing on the bridge of a cargo ship, looking out at the massive deck in front. Our Saab 9-3 estate, meanwhile, which was built in 2007, is only around 1.7 metres wide and feels noticeably skinnier from the driver's seat. It still has a bonnet so long it feels like you're staring down a runway, but once you're sitting behind the wheel, it somehow feels like a compact car with a really big bum.
We’re at a point now where it is becoming really noticeable in places like the car park. It seems that it’s becoming harder and harder to find a space wide enough to park my car without having to breathe in to squeeze out of the door or get my son out the back. Because all these huge cars now take up 99% of a parking space, leaving stacks of cars parked almost door-to-door, meaning you need to be flat Stanley to get in and out of the car. This, of course, is leading to people parking across two spaces or over the line just enough to make the space in the middle unusable.
Then there are the roads. Britain has an awful lot of country roads that were designed long before anyone had considered the possibility that one day a family hatchback would be wider than it is long, meaning that when two modern cars meet head-on, tailbacks start to form as they try and squeeze past each other with microns between them. What makes it worse is the increasing number of people who seem to drive directly down the middle of the road because they are terrified of scratching their enormous, primer-grey SUV on a leaf that might be hanging over the side of the road. You can see them coming from half a mile away, occupying approximately 93 percent of the already narrow road, piling toward me like some sort of grey naval vessel, and just as you think they’re going to move over just enough to allow you to pass by, they move even further into the centre of the road like they’re engaging in some sort of jousting. I never understand what they think will happen, other than a massive accident. I just tuck right over as far as the birds will allow, then stop and let them work it out.
Something then must give. Maybe it’s time we do need to start making car parking spaces bigger or dividing spaces up more and maybe adding special spaces for people who think they’re a little bit better than everyone else – a single space with a line down the middle to make them feel like they’re parking across two spaces, leaving the rest of us to park like normal people. Maybe we’re at a point where we need to start widening roads, because even the single-track roads meant for tractors to get around aren’t wide enough for even the newest tractors. The Lamborghini R8 tractor is massive, after all. Some might even say it's too big.
At what point will cars stop growing? How big will they need to get before someone in the car industry finally says, 'Ok, maybe we’ve gone too far on this one, make it a little bit smaller'. Maybe by then, though, cars will be so big the three-lane motorway will be reduced to a single-lane road full of mega-sized compact cars. Until then, though, more people need to learn how wide their new land barge is, and when you’ve got someone coming the other way, just shuffle over enough to let them come past without having to perch the car on a branch of a nearby tree.
Written by Daniel hatton