I later bought a manual transmission Fit because it felt and drove EXACTLY like my beloved Civic, but wasn't old and crappy. The way it shifted just felt perfect. Wonder how long it will take till the Fit starts expanding.

The Fit has done a pretty good job - 10 years and 2 generations, and it has only added about 100 lbs to the curb weight.

http://blog.caranddriver.com/porsche-911-generations-the-leg...

With the right badges, type-r stickers, and engine swaps - anything is possible...

My 2016 Camaro 2SS: 457 HP and ~3,700 pounds

Well, half-right at least...

That said, IMO that 2016 car drives like a budget Porsche Cayman while the 1999 car was a glorious tire-smoking muscle car. Ironically, I get slightly worse mileage out of the 2016 edition (22 vs 25 mpg).

Even the use of the word "glorious" implies that he enjoyed the older one better. People don't buy Camaros for the handling, even if it may have been improved.

Now if you go back twenty plus years or more before the age of crush points and advanced passenger safety systems both passive and active, yeah you can find your lighter weight cars. Cars which won't handle a head on with a car two sizes smaller.

Weight is one reason why manufacturers are loathe to commit all out for BEV, that thousand pounds of battery not only takes an hour to charge fully it weighs the same with or without a charge and imparts little range (sorry but if your range starts with a 1 or 2 its commuter range)

now take into account that many nameplates moved up in size classification. Accords certainly were not mid sized when they came out and even Chryslers minivan if not Honda's first weren't very big.

Efficiency gains are certainly there but much is lost with the way people drive.

Granted cars have gotten much safer, but much of that is due to increased crash regulations forcing car manufacturers to make modern cars much larger to account for the crumple zones etc that make them much better at protecting occupants as well as pedestrians in accidents. This in turn is a major factor in why cars are so often much, much heavier today than before. Colin Chapman is probably turning in his grave!

So perhaps it would be fair to say that vehicle weights are converging on the low-mid 3000lb range.

I also greatly preferred its' handling. Newer BMWs feel (to me) similar to driving my parents' Crown Vic (a comment that irritated the BMW dealer considerably).

The e28 has a shorter wheelbase than the 1 series sedan (but is longer overall due to its stylish 80's big overhangs...) It is also narrower than the 1 series.

Agreed, it's safer, considerably faster and much more luxurious. It is also priced a lot higher.

Taking into account inflation, it's only priced slightly higher. 8400 dollars from 1984 becomes something like $19500. Which would get you a Honda Fit, which is probably a lot more similar to that old GTI.

The closest today to a mk1 golf/polo is probably the "up". having been in both, the interior space is very close to the golf, the boot is slightly smaller than the original polo. There's even a 120hp turbo version, with slightly better performance than the original golf GTI :)

The article only references gas mileage improvements, which are substantial.

American cars in the 70s and 80s were monsters. Definitely heavier than modern cars.

For example, here are 10 popular cars in the US from 1984. http://www.caranddriver.com/features/1984-10best-cars-1984-h...

    Audi 5000s: 2850-3100 lbs
    Dodge Daytona: 2830 lbs
    Honda Accord: 2300 lbs
    Honda Prelude: 2220 lbs
    Mazda 626: 2220 lbs
    Pontiac 6000STE:  3000 lbs
    Pontiac Fiero: 2580 lbs
    Porsche 944: 2830 lbs

Then again, the best selling car in the US in 2016 is the Toyota Camry which is 3,245 to 3,480 lbs so I guess I'm wrong. Maybe US cars were monsters in the 70's then?

  Infiniti QX80 – 5,633 pounds
  Toyota Sequoia – 5,730 pounds
  Toyota Land Cruiser – 5,765 pounds
  Lincoln Navigator – 5,830 pounds
  Lexus LX 570 – 6,000 pounds

The FJ40 from 1960 is somewhat comparable, but weighed 1/2 (3263 lbs) what the modern beast weighs.

The FJ60 (http://tlc4x4.com/fj60.htm#sthash.nB2cpi4h.dpbs) from 1981 was even closer and heavy at 4246 lbs, but again still 1,500 lb lighter than the current version.

I'm in Canada, and although I wasn't very old in the 80's, I remember seeing lots of Caprice Classics and Crown Victorias, which were around 3500 pounds, possibly more? My family have a Chevy Malibu wagon, which was a mid-size car but was definitely 3000+ lbs. Smaller cars were starting to become more popular, but there were still lots of monsters around.

So there were lots of heavy cars roaming the US and Canada in the 80s - but a new car of equivalent weight will usually use a lot less fuel, and be a lot more pleasant to drive.

Eg, the 1977 Ford LTD Country Squire Wagon had a curb weight of 4500lbs. It has been replaced by SUVs like the Expedition, with a curb weight of 5500lbs.

No. Car weights in America fell dramatically after the 1973 oil crisis, reached a low point in the mid 1980s, and have been rising since. Here are the 2017 Car & Driver 10 best

  BMW M2 3450
  Chevy Bolt 3563
  Chevy Camaro 3883
  Chevy Corvette Grand Sport 3428
  Honda Accord 3336
  Porsche 718 Cayman 2988
  VW Golf GTI 3027