Siberia Delica wrote:How do we not have these in the States?!
[rant ON]
Because the States is a VERY protectionist market, and as another poster stated very much driven (pardon the pun) by what the producers tell the purchasers they want to drive. Look at the HUMMER: a good part of the ad campaign for that vehicle touted that size=safety and made very little (if any) mention of the fact that the vehicle gets less than 10mpg (original HUMMER, but I don't imagine the H2 or H3 get that much better fuel economy). Carry that misrepresentation to any of the other NAMPOS SUVs or SUTs and you find the size=safety theme in nearly every campaign. Throw in the hybrid system so the greenies feel good about driving a monster, and everyone's happy. So much is this engrained into the American psyche now that when the SMART car was introduced a couple of years ago, practically no-one believed that the IIHS could award a car 'that small' a five-star crash safety rating. "I mean really, how could it be safe?"
The 25-yr rule in America was primarily intended to keep competing sports cars (mostly European) of the era off American roads, forcing consumers to purchase the muscle cars Detroit was pumping out at the time. What this lead to was a generation of consumers who bought big-blocked big cars that handled poorly (compared to their European counterparts), and it was only the oil crisis of the '70s which forced the market to think smaller and better. But instead of building their own small cars, the Datsuns and the Mitsubishis and the Toyotas were 'allowed' into the market, either under their own badge (in restricted numbers) or badged as a Detroit vehicle (a 'captive' import). The Dodge Colt is a good example of this: a very reliable car, being a Mitsubishi, that had the Dodge name on the grille and a slightly different interior than the Mitsubishi Galant of that time. The Ram D50 is another captive import: it's an L300 with a Dodge truck body on it! How many Ram D50s do you still see running around? Considering not many were sold, there's still quite a large percentage of them on the road (at least here in Canada anyway).
I've had a number of people ask me why I didn't buy a NAMPOS and I reply with: "Show me a 2.5 litre, diesel-engined 4 cylinder, 4x4 that seats seven people and gets 20+mpg (I can squeeze nearly 25mpg out of it if I drive conservatively)." They can't. Sure, it won't tow my grandmother's mobile home out of the park, but the Delica wasn't designed to do that. It was designed (I deduce) as a weekend getaway vehicle for a consumer that doesn't drive half the annual distances we do, on highways that have a speed limit of 80km/h, and who won't tow anything bigger than what we would call a motorcycle trailer.
[rant OFF]
But it suits us just fine, which is why we love them so much.
PS: We in Canada, while having slightly different vehicular needs/tastes, have been subjected to a lot of the same 'vehicular recommendations' by the automotive producers. But considering the size of our market is only comparable to that of the State of California, I doubt the Detroit 3 paid much attention to what we wanted.
PSS: In my nearly 25 years of vehicle ownership, I personally have NEVER bought a NAMPOS, although my wife has. I drove them because I had to, and pretty much disliked it every time I sat in the seat (honestly). Everything is in the 'wrong' spot from what I'm used to driving the imports all these years.