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Suspect that safety kit like squashy bumpers and airbags must have something to do with size expansion. Even so, it is a fact that today’s Polo is well larger than the first three or four marks of Golf.
Suspect that our need to have ever more things in a car also contributes to bloating – in 1976 my new mini had under its bonnet an engine, a gearbox, a couple of small electric things (alternator etc) and a radiator. A new mini today will have to hold all the above plus a couple of turbo units for engine, compressors and fluid tanks for air con, pumps, tanks and wracks for power steering, possibly oil-coolers and a whole lot of other gubbins which weren’t thought of when Sir Alec made the Mini.
2.0i countryman twin power turbo, not much room for anything else!
Noel – your snap confirms my thoughts: in my 76 Mini, despite its smallness, the engine compartment actually had some empty space: kippers could be fixed to radiator to be perfectly cooked on arrival; birds could nest, etc.
You can’t even get to the battery, (the red thing top right) As it’s under the strut brace and hidden under the bulkhead. God knows how they change them!
I guess the thinking is the battery should last 5 years by which time the cost of dismantling the car to get at it falls to the owner!
Couldn’t get to the original Mini battery under the bonnet either. Issigonis stuffed it in a little box in the boot.
It’s predominantly safety and ancillaries. Every door now has to be full of electric motors and gubbins. They’re certainly not any bigger on the inside!
I don’t know what the reverse term of TARDIS is but that’s what modern cars are!
Yes, its about time they changed the ’50’s spec for the parking spaces to better reflect the modern motors. We are not all driving about in Austin 8’s anymore. Just 58″ wide, no wonder the spaces are so narrow.
In life, it's not who you know that's important, it's how your wife found out.
The 1990s mini cooper sport i had still had the battery in the boot but what a great looking car it was even fuel injected as well although it only had 62 bhp but its cornering was like a go kart our family had minis in the 1960s and 70s so i still am a fan. I had a few smart for twos the battery up to 2015 model was in the passenger footwell and when i had a flat battery you had to take out part of the footwell to get to it a real pain then newer renault smart alliance smarts had the battery at the front which was great a real shame that they have stopped there great little engines and that brabus mini flyer they were a bit overpriced though when new.
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