The Mini Cooper meets its monthly sales quota in Las Vegas.
As cosmic questions go, it's not up there with how did the universe begin or what in the name of all that's holy has happened to Britney Spears. But it's perplexing nonetheless:
Is it possible to look cool while driving a small car?
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The answer was easy in the '70s, '80s or '90s: No. That is, unless you define "cool" as piloting a character-bereft hunk of metal shaped like something a preschooler would make out of building blocks.
But today? Well, yes, thanks to automakers' realization that even consumers who can't afford the new 2007 Moneygrabber Special Edition SUV appreciate a bit of style, too.
Small cars traditionally were affordable, economical, reliable -- but nobody seriously argued they were hip. Then, while we weren't looking, the small car turned, like a shop-rat Cinderella, into a stylish ride that can make even the geekiest driver look cool.
We're not talking just about the Volkswagen Beetle, back to reclaim the geeky-but-cool cachet it rode in the '60s, and the Mini Cooper, the Matchbox-like coupe that was so cool it co-starred with Charlize Theron in the remake of "The Italian Job."
These days, everybody from Honda (the Fit) and Toyota (the Yaris) to Chevrolet (the Aveo) is putting out small cars hip enough to make those lumbering SUVs and Hummers look overdone in comparison.
"No question about it," says Joe Barker, senior manager of global sales forecasting for CSM Worldwide, a Detroit-based automotive consulting firm. "The small cars of today versus the small cars of 10 years ago are much larger in size, they are far more powerful, they are stylish and they are a lot of fun to drive.
"Ten years ago, none of that was true. You had boring, bland designs, the engines were terribly underpowered and they were all very small. You even have premium small cars now, whereas, 10 years ago, that simply did not exist in this country."
"We're seeing more and more small cars from virtually every player in the marketplace," Barker adds, and small cars in such permutations as small sedans, traditional sedans, coupes, small crossover vehicles and -- here's a blast from the past -- hatchbacks.
"Now, they try to give you a little bit of everything else. They try to give you some style," agrees Al Shirley, general sales manager at Henderson Chevrolet.
John Astle, a "motoring adviser" -- yes, that's the title -- at Desert Mini of Las Vegas, says he's seeing more and more small cars of every stripe on Southern Nevada's roads.
"For a while, it seemed everything on the road was trucks and things like that," he says, and, now, "you look out here and you're seeing a lot more smaller cars go by."
Astle can speak firsthand about the loftier coolness quotient of today's small cars: "My parents," he recalls, "had a Ford Escort."
The virtues of the small car -- great fuel efficiency, lower cost -- remain, with mileage figures for compacts and subcompacts generally falling in the 20s and 30s. But make no mistake: Going small today is as much about form as function.
Take Honda's Fit, an Americanized version of a vehicle that's Honda's best-selling car in Europe and that's sold in more than 100 countries, according to Sage Marie, corporate spokesman for American Honda Motor Co. Today, Fit holds the entry-level, cornerstone position the company's still popular -- and much evolved -- Civic occupied when it came out in the United States more than 30 years ago.
American drivers today -- even young or entry-level drivers who are looking for a first, or first new, car -- have raised their expectations for small cars, Marie says. "I think part of the Fit's popularity is the realization among shoppers that no longer does a small, inexpensive car mean a cheap feeling."
A car purchase "always starts with getting the emotions going, and the styling and the aesthetics are the beginning of the purchase," says Jim Mooradian, general manager of Courtesy Imports.
For instance, Mazda's entry into the small, hip car sweepstakes, the Mazdaspeed3 is "just sexy as heck," Mooradian says.
And sex, as it always has, sells. "If you wanted one today," Mooradian says, "I'd have to wait until March 1st to order and it's 90 days out from there."
But, Mooradian notes, today's car buyers are more savvy than those of a decade or so past, because they can surf the Internet to compare car makes, models, prices and features. They also can unearth such previously secret bits of info as how much the dealer paid for the new car they see sitting on the showroom floor.
Given all this, Mooradian says, "you'd better have a product that stacks up."
Young and first-time car buyers remain a prime market for small cars, thanks to the vehicles' relatively affordable price tags -- typically a base of $10,000 to $15,000 -- but that doesn't mean they're willing to sacrifice style.
The Aveo has been available for about three years, but caught fire in the past year or so, Shirley says. With its roster of safety and optional features it is, he notes, "surely more than an entry buyer of a few years ago would have gotten for his money."
Honda's Marie says the keys to small car success are offering a car "people are proud to own, that they don't feel like they're driving something that's not desirable or just all they could afford."
Honda's Fit is "resonating with the enthusiast buyer," he adds, "because it's also fun to drive."
Fun to drive is good, but adding some classic British cachet doesn't hurt, either. Mini's line of British-made vehicles hit U.S. shores in 2002, but they're still made in only one factory in Oxford, England, Astle says.
"It's a limited production car. Our dealership gets about 30 a month and we sell 30 a month. There's still a big demand for them. People special-order them. It's the most customizable car in the world. You're able to deck them out the way you want it."
Film and TV buffs will recognize the classic Mini Cooper from scads of movies and Britcoms. The base price of owning a movable, distinctive chunk of British cool is about $18,700.
Some Southern Nevadans "just want to have a car that stands out," Astle says. "You get a Mini because it's fun. It's a blast to drive."
But isn't driving a car that, cool aside, could be crushed by a Hummer like a bug on the windshield a bit scary?
"No problem at all," says Astle, because of the Mini's engineering, low profile and easy handling.
"Most people see you, except for people driving SUVs talking on their phones," he adds. "But, then, you just move out of the way if you need to."
