The Car Questions

I’ll keep this short, because no one could possibly be less interested in my continuous car shopping than you guys. But in my previous missive I forgot to list the questions brought up by this exercise. So here they are now.

1. Why do Americans hate hatchbacks?

2. Why is the station wagon dead?

3. Why don’t the car companies make an enjoyable luxury hatchback that is practical, spacious, and comfortable to drive? Instead the sector is dominated by useless performance boy-toys and price-point econoboxes. Maybe that’s why Americans hate hatchbacks.

4. Why are SUVs so popular? They are worse to drive, a lot uglier, and more difficult to make out in the back of than a station wagon.

5. Why is the fundamental relationship that you are supposed to have with your dealer an [adversarial one](http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/editorial- car-dealers-suck/)? Wouldn’t it be much more [commercially efficient to fix this](http://www.autosavant.com/2009/02/24/how-about-some-restructuring-in- the-auto-retail-arena/)? I have some theories about this which I can summarize by saying: it must be because a certain number of men are assholes with OCD.

6. Finally, a non-question question. It’s interesting to me that within a few inches cars seem to come in only three sizes. Small, medium, and too big. In the U.S. almost everything is either medium or too big. And the nice small ones are either too cheap or too expensive. Now go back to question 1.