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Thread: Early Volkswagon Golf Length and Mirage both 150" !

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    Senior Member highwire's Avatar
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    Early Volkswagon Golf Length and Mirage both 150" !

    So I was thinking back when I was really young, and the only super compact car that my family had was a 1986 Jetta coupe. I grew up with a 1979 Chevy Caprice and a Jetta, and I was only a few years old when the Jetta was bought so I remember it for as long as I was aware, lol. But what I find interesting and desirable is the car length. The Jetta and Golf were made in reaction to the Malaise era (Oil Crisis), and I never knew until reading this forum that the Golf was also the spiritual "successor" to the Beetle. I did a little research on the car length of the Jetta and Golf, and found that the Jetta coupe (less common than the 4 door) was around 165 inches long. The Mirage hatchback is ~149 inches. And early generation Golf is also ~149 inches.

    Which brings me to this post. Despite gas prices not being as high as they were 10-12 years ago, I still like that the Mirage is the closest thing to bringing back the more affordable era before gas prices doubled in the early 00's. The small car factor is often overlooked in the era of Cross bred crossovers, but it's a subtle reminder that not everything modest must change. For the Mirage, it brings backs memories of my parent's Jetta. What I find amazing is that, it seated three in the back, and that is almost a rare sight these days.

    Gas cars aside, It would be interesting if Mitsubishi developed another electric car for the U.S. market, even a Mirage. I think it would be a huge development cost and low popularity brand which seems to be perhaps why they are not developing one. I think it's great to have a gas car for long distance, but range is unlikely to improve beyond 400 miles in the near term for electric cars. I think the MiEV car looks a little alien for the U.S. market, which is maybe why they discontinued it. Perhaps a 2nd generation design would help revive sales and bring it back to the U.S.? I think more electric cars would benefit from a solar energy system that they are installing. It seems that a dealership selling solar power (for an all-home solution) would be a good deal for consumers if the system eliminated the need for adapters that were not optimized for efficiency in charging. In other words, DC chargers direct from the panel and battery pack. You may have read about this- made for the Outlander PHEV, but currently only in Japan and Europe:
    https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/6/18...plug-in-hybrid

    Charging an all-electric Mirage wouldn't take as long as charging an Outlander PHEV (or fully electric), which tempts me to think if Mitsubishi will do like Fiat 500 and go electric on their best selling model along with copying Tesla and go long-range on their in-house solar panel and battery systems one day.





    Last edited by highwire; 01-21-2020 at 02:13 AM.

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