Imagine if Mirage technology had been combined with Geo Metro simplicity!

[nternal1]

The pre "95" Geo Metro was/is an amazing eco car for city dwellers. It was barebones simple and it was this minimalist design (talk about driving a go-cart) that resulted in it's two most tremendous qualities:
1) it got obscenely good gas mileage and
2) it was ridiculously reliable (they could almost run forever and it is commonplace to find examples with 300,000 km that have had little more than a clutch replacement)

The problem with a car like the Mirage is that it's WAY too complex to really live up to what the Metro was. It's loaded with luxuries and features... all of which add weight and create the potential for problems. Complexity is arguably justifiable in a luxury car where one spends a lot of money to make sure that all that complexity is durable and reliable but, by definition, that kind of indulgence is also a perfect example of the frivolous excess endemic in our society. All the added luxury features of my new Mirage (listed in a previous post) are certainly nice but lets face it... they aren't even remotely necessary and, I'm sure they are going to be a source of never-ending problems 10 years down the road (I already have an issue with an airbag light that is staying on). Do I really need 7 airbags and antilock brakes in the city? I don't think so. Is it too much work to reach across and roll down the window... not so much. I could go on, but you get the idea.

It's too bad that people are so easily manipulated by a marketing machine that convinces them they have to have 10 times more than they really need to be happy. Can you imagine if all the "fat" in the Mirage had been trimmed off and the basic engine technology combined with an absolutely minimalist design? We could have gotten 1,000,000 km/L !!!!
Ok...maybe not 1,000,000.