I am fascinated by Europe in many more ways than one.’ For the sake of this column, however, I will attempt to tackle the European obsession with fun-sized cars.’ America is a country that built a road system with the modern automobile in mind, whereas this is hardly the case for our British or French colleagues ‘- it is no wonder that the Mini is the popular equivalent of our Ford Explorer. I say that it is high time we embrace our American-ness and accept the fact that we like big cars, and we cannot lie.’ General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, in addition to our imported domestics, Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi and the likes, need to start offering us the super-sized cars we desire without killing us at the pumps.

I am a long time reader of Car and Driver, Autoweek, and more recently, a great website by the name Autoblog (autoblog.com).’ I had read a small snippet about the Ford S-Max MPV, which basically stands for Small Minivan in American-speak. I stumbled upon a British online auto magazine, Auto Car (autocar.co.uk) and read up more about this vehicle.’ Adjusting for the odd British gallon, the S-Max gets roughly 40 mpg, while cruising to 60 in 10.1 seconds, compared with the same sprint in 8.5 seconds for the US Ford Freestar.’ How is this possible?’ Why, diesel, of course ‘- specifically, a 2.0 liter four cylinder diesel engine that makes 138 hp and 236 lb/ft of torque.’ Would we sacrifice one and a half seconds to 60 if it means going from an estimated 18 mpg combined to 40 mpg combined?’ Easily.’ Yet, we can’t buy the S-Max in America, especially not with a diesel.

I can easily envision people opting for an MPV or crossover instead of a compact car any day, because size matters.’ In American-speak, ‘I like big cars’ also means ‘I like safe cars,’ though we’d never admit it.’ After hearing that Daimler-Chrysler, a company I have come to respect, plans to bring Smart to America, I involuntarily cringed. I found a link to a video that demonstrated a controlled head-on collision between a Mercedes and a Smart ForTwo subcompact in Germany.’ The results were not surprising, but nonetheless jarring ‘- while the Mercedes front end was all torn up, the Smart ForTwo became airborne, doing a somersault before finally landing.

Regarding our tastes for trucks and SUVs, I see no problem with taking the existing class of midsize and large autos and simply dropping diesel engines in.’ Effective now, the diesel fuel that you buy at the pump is certified Ultra Low Sulfur, which means companies can now start installing catalytic converters onto diesel-powered cars.’ Finally, diesel cars will meet the stringent standards of states like New York and California.’ I envision being able to buy a Chevy Tahoe, powered by a diesel engine, that accelerates a bit more sluggishly than its gasoline counterpart, but gets 30-40% better mileage.

The focus needs to be on making big cars as inexpensively and as fuel efficient as possible, not building a better compact.’ I’ve owned a compact, a Mazda3 Sport, and while it was quick and fun to drive, nothing beats my SUV.’ The vast majority of the nation agrees, as SUV sales continue strong even with the price of gas reaching almost $4 recently.’ I urge the Big Three, et al, to make their cars bigger and better, while working towards a cleaner, and cheaper, future.