SUNSET OF THE SEDAN
Longer! Lower! Wider!”
For decades, those three words triggered fever dreams of speed, style, and, with a wink, an extra sprinkle of sexiness. In 1965, they helped talk 1 million Americans into the Chevrolet Impala, which remains the single biggest-selling passenger car this country has ever known. But walk into a Ford showroom next year, and you might have trouble spotting its last remaining “car”—the iconic Mustang—amid a Stonehenge of towering crossovers, SUVs, and trucks. There will be no sedans at all down the street at the Chrysler showroom, and by late next year, the history book will also snap shut on that onetime king of American sedans—the iconic Impala.
What the heck has happened?
Everybody who was blindsided by this apparent rogue wave of change now seems to be an expert on what caused it. Here on our little island of car-testing expertise we happen to pride ourselves on measuring performance, and as I commute every day on L.A.’s infamous 405, I’m often surrounded by newbie crossover drivers weaving through lanes (sometimes past me). Do they really understand how their SUVs’ dynamics differ from those of the sedans they traded in? Judging by how closely they tailgate at 80 mph, I wonder.
And I’m guessing plenty of workers at GM’s when Impala production ceases next year. That car’s demise deserves a moment of reflection and postmortem perspective. For me, it means it’s time to snap on the latex gloves for an automotive autopsy to better understand how we got here.
