Car Sizes Through the Years

It has been a gradual change, however it is definitely there. Our cars have gotten bigger. Automotive.com walks us through some of our favorite car’s growth spurts in the Car Sizes Through the Years infographic.

One of the great joys of living in Los Angeles is the wide variety of cars you see on the road. It provides a great contrast, especially when comparing between generations.

For example: a while back, news director Keith Buglewicz was driving down the freeway when he found himself behind a 2013 Ford Mustang, and its 1967 fastback equivalent. The modern Mustang dwarfed its predecessor in every dimension; comparatively speaking, it was mammoth.

When did cars get so big?

I really like this design.  It’s very focused on telling one story about the growing size of cars, and the design style is superb.  By using images and outlines of the actual cars, it tells the story much better than a bar chart would have because the images are recognizable to the reader which improves comprehension.

The design is missing some form of copyright statement and the URL link to the original infographic landing page so readers can find the high-resolution version when they see this posted on other sites.

Thanks to Chris for sending in the link

Comments

[Nicole]

Interesting post! Thank you.

[Tommy]

I like how the advertisement fit the theme. Yeah, I know it probably crosses all sorts of editorial/advertising boundaries, but it's well done.

[Ramonda]

Los Angeles is the city where we can see a wide variety of cars on the road. The style, design and growing size of cars is changing generation to generation. New technology is providing a lot of comfortable cars with excellent style. Now people are also much interested on such cars. The above representation of data provides clear information about gradual changes in car technology which is very clear to understand.

[Chris Koszo]

Hi Tommy, this is Chris from Automotive.com who helped create this. Thank you for the comment! You want to know something funny--it's not an intentional advertisement in any way, shape or form, believe it or not! Our in-house designer was squeezed for time, and he laid on the 'Murrica and marketing vibe pretty heavy lol. It was right around 4th of July when we were working on this (it was my idea for a fun summer project), and I guess this is purely his subconscious at work.

Mac is a great designer, but thanks for the note--in hindsight it really does seem like Ford paid us some big bucks for this!! My original goal for the Ford Explorer portion of the graphic was to highlight how the new model isn't even a real SUV any more but rather a unibody crossover--meaning it can't really tow a trailer well, and isn't as tough as its predecessors. Also, I wanted to poke fun at Americans and their love for large gas-loving SUVs. My thoughts were lost on my designer though who only had a few hours to wrap this project up. He's a very positive guy, but in this case he made my infographic look like an advertisement :)

I'm glad you got some value out of it and maybe even enjoyed it- we love cars and visuals so look out for more things coming your way! Here's a cool breakdown of what determines your car insurance rates that we made a while back: http://www.car-insurance.com/infographic-average-car-insurance-price-what-determines-rates.html

Thanks Randy Krum (@randykrum) for featuring this graphic!

[Randy]

Chris, thanks for providing some of the behind-the-design information and the thoughts that impacted the final infographic!

[Emanuel]

Technologies are improving and we can see the implementation of it in cars. The old models of the cars are developed and enlarged with more good features. The models are modified and again launched which are liked by people. Now people search for spacious cars with more features. People feel that large cars are much more better than small cars. So keeping this in mind companies are launching old models with a new modifications and size.

[Sandra]

The size have grown from a little one to a big one, it wasn't too long ago that we use to see cars like Accord which was comfortable enough at that point of time, same car if you are told to drive now you will find it to be compact. The thing is that the evolution of big cars have forced human to believe that those were small ones. But even those cars were big enough at there time.

[Samantha]

The sizes of car and that of life inside them have increased. There was a time driving car was considered to be one of the most boring thing people use to drive car only if they can't afford a driver or the driver is on holiday. But now there are a very few drivers who lets his/her driver to drive the car they love to drive it themselves and that is because driving the car have became fun now. The car size have increased and even playing for kids and fun for elderly have been made possible inside the car.

[Kelvin Denish]

As the technology is improving day by day, the sizes of the cars are also increasing. This totally depends on the demands and needs of the people. People are looking for long cars, for comfortable journey. Also we can find that luxury cars have usually large sizes. A big car reveals your personality. So people prefer to buy long cars.

[Alessio Amedeo]

Automobile manufacturer are very much focused towards changing of technology. As we all know change is the only thing which is permanent today so people always prefer new styles and technologies . Manufacturers are making new design of cars with different sizes and styles based upon the demand of user and to increase their comfort level. Most of the people choose their car to improve their status and for luxury so they usually prefer latest models based upon recent technologies. All people are very much aware about the choice they make. They consider the cost which should be affordable to them. They may sacrifice the cost factor but they do not sacrifice the style or technologies.