People's Height and the International Portland Auto Show

It seems that car designers must live on Gulliver's Island - everything is on the wrong scale. Maybe it is Gilligan's Island, the way they really do the styling of the car.

You can tell the true globalization of the industry - everything is being done to a one size fits all perspective. Car heights are getting lower, and the headroom in 98% of the cars are designed for people who top out at 5' 10" in height - basically the height of the designers in Germany, Japan, Korea, Italy, England (well, England I think has only 1 car manufacturer left, and it is mostly owned by others).

They design the cars there and then ship them everywhere else.

Most designs are geared to the US Market - but not really the consumer's market but the California MPG and emissions rules that have to be met in order to sell cars there. Thus, a rule in California gets applied to all other places in the US since it is cheaper to build to one spec than to two.

I sat in $100,000 cars down to $12,000 - and all but 4 had the same problem - no headroom. Put in a sunroof (moon roof is what they call them - but is there enough moonlight to read in a car with darkened glass?) and they build INTO the passenger area taking away 1 1/2 to 2 inches of headroom.

Out of the 37 vehicles I sat in - Even a Hummer - only 4 had more than two finger's width of headroom above my head. The $34,000 Saab was by far the best - high seats making it easy to get in and out of and high headroom while still being pretty low to the ground. Most cars had my head touching the top or I had to tilt sideways when sitting upright.

Forget buying any sports car - the roll bar / windscreen top is AT my eye level in them - so there is 3 inches of other stuff to block view below that.

People have been getting TALLER since the 1930s about .5 inches every 15 years or so in the US. (discounting all the people who emigrated here since the 1960s. most immigrants came from SE Asia or Mexico where their average height is around 5'2" - 35 million arrivals in last 20 years skews the height of pre-existing population.)

Kitchens heights are still based on the height of people IN THE 1920s!

Simple trends to see - but car builders - and house builders - seem to be blind and living on Gulliver's Island.