Forget the Bailout, Here's How to Save Detroit
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada 
on 12.15.08
Our Plan to Save Detroit
It is with tongue planted firmly in cheek that we present you our plan to save the big Detroit automakers from smaller and more efficient foreign cars: They simply need to knock off highly desirable foreign cars, but make them super-efficient and inexpensive by shrinking them! Voilà!
Many more models of the cars of tomorrow below the fold.
Even the Corvette could get this treatment!
It's funny how these pictures keep coming back. In 2005 right after hurricane Katrina, when oil prices were going up rapidly (all the way to $60/barrel, can you imagine the horror!), we suggested that maybe if cars kept shrinking, that someday they'll look like this.
Via The Big Picture
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That's hilarious :-)
they look like thoose little penny racer toys I use to play with as a kid.
That's what's up! I would love to drive the Lamborghini or the Porsche! These should be reality!
So cute! I'll take one of the mini-Porsche Carerras.Shrunk to a Bugs proportions and somehow still looking as sexy as it always has.
Are those real cars?
One problem is that they would be very, very dangerous.
I prefer riding in tanks! Or older Volvo models, which are very similar to tanks!
NS
http://sciencedefeated.wordpress.com
Those are really cute, i thought i'd have to buy a KA or Smart, now i can buy a Corvette. I'm also vertically impaired so a tiny car like that not only saves on energy, but means people like me dont have to adjust the seat.
Actually, if someone went ahead and made these things they would probably sell like crazy, can say I would have one, providing it was an EV...
I've thought that GM should make a modern version of the Opel GT using the Ecotech 4 cylinder. Make it handle like a corvette with much better mileage, and for less money.
Toyota MR2 proves their is a market for this sort of thing.
Double dare those car crazy nuts who streach out limos and hummers to go the other way and create one of these!
So would they be gas, electric, or powered by dragging them backwards to tighten up the spring?
Let's be real: This will only happen if the current Big Three leadership is replaced immediately.
Looks like some of the kei-cars we see a lot of here in Japan. Hilarious photoshop jobs, don't they have awards for that now?
I would love to have a little pick up on one of those foundations. Or a bigger one that my camper would fit on that got 100 MPG. I love my camping.
I wish they shrunk until implosion.
Works for me. It's the only way I'd ever be able to afford a sports car.
Nice post. Unforutnately I have to clear up a misconception about small cars:
Smaller cars are not inherently cheaper to produce. They end up being cheaper on the market because that's the price point consumers are willing to buy them at, but the production cost of a Suburban is only slightly more than for an Aveo. Most of the cost is in R&D and labour, with only a small percentage being materials cost.
But the consumer considers more room, more features, and leather seats to be a luxury, so they're willing to pay more for them. And this larger profit margin is exactly the reason why GM has been producing monster SUVs.
At the same time, a Lotus or Lambourgini has about the same weight and legroom of an Aveo (if not less), but because of a higher R&D and labour costs for putting it all together just so (nevermind inventing new technologies to make it faster), they cost many times more both for the producer and the consumer.
If one of those started spinning like a top on an icy road, would it ever stop? I'm sure it would have to, but you may be late for your appointment. Instead of a spare tire I could haul one of these in my pickup bed and have a spare vehicle.
@Kansan: A bit of physics for you: the rate of deceleration on an icy road should be roughly independent of the mass of the vehicle. The force from friction between car and surface (and thus the rate of deceleration) scales with the mass of the vehicle.
LOL those look awesome!
how much would it cost