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Spark Vs Barge - The New Micro-Chevy is Compared to Yesterday's Land Barge

In The Real World of Daily Commuting, How Does Spark Compare to America's Nixon-Era Family Car?

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/SparkVsBarge310.jpg

Chris Bernius - CleanMPG - Apr 26.2012

The Auto Show season has ended, and so the news leaks, spy photos and press releases tend to get a little quiet this time of year. It's not a good time to be an auto writer because there isn't always much to share that's really new, other than periodic awards or new ratings releases. But Chevrolet decided to add a fun little poster to their news feed to start the drum roll for their new-for-2013 fun little Spark that is due to arrive at dealers some time this summer.

The people at Chevrolet decided to create a single page infomercial titled "The Small and Big of It". And it's a comparison of a 2013 Chevrolet Spark against an "average" 1973 full size domestic car. The idea is to illustrate four decades of automotive design progress. They say the exterior is 50% smaller, the front leg/head room and rear head room virtually matches, and both cars roll on standard 15 inch wheels.

Their punchline - "Let's compare the big rides from four decades ago with today's subcompacts to see what's changed, and what hasn't."

Here is the graphic, which inexplicably shows a 1979 Chrysler New Yorker instead of a 1973 Impala, which was actually three inches longer than the Mopar R-Body in the cartoon. Oh well, we'll write it off to artistic interpretation.

The Small And Big Of It - The Spark Vs The Barge of 1973

When I saw the comparison, the curiosity started. How does the Spark really compare to the Chevrolet cars of 1973? Not only in exterior and interior inches and pounds, but also in fuel economy and horsepower?

There was only one way to find out.

A little snooping on a website that has a database of automotive literature turned up images of the original Chevrolet sales brochures that contained most of the information I needed. While it took some time to gather the information and plug it into a spreadsheet, the result contained some very revealing conclusions. Along with the 1973 Impala, I included the 1973 Nova - a "compact" at the time, and a 1973 Vega hatchback - the smallest Chevrolet on sale at the time. Here is the resulting spreadsheet:

2013 Spark vs 1973 Impala, 1973 Nova, 1973 Vega

In the spreadsheet, the first column is titled SPARK and has the numbers for the 2013 Spark. From left to right, the Impala (our "average full size car") is listed, followed by the Nova, and then the Vega.

The column just next to SPARK is titled "PerPass" and shows shoulder and hip room - front and rear - divided by two. Since it is a four passenger car, dividing hip and shoulder measurements by two shows the room available per passenger. In the "PerPass" column for the Impala and Nova, the hip/shoulder numbers are divided by three since these were marketed as six passenger cars. The Vega was a four seater and so the hip/shoulder numbers are halved to show space per passenger.

The columns titled "Spark->####", with each car name, is a simple calculation to show comparison of the Spark to the car named in the column title. A number in parenthesis means the number is negative, without parenthesis means the number is positive.

Curb weights are never listed in sales brochures, and so the numbers listed are an average of several different sites that posted curb weights for the three vintage cars. If the numbers seem higher than expected, I learned by researching that 1973 model cars were the first to have door beams and other structural changes to meet new crash and crush standards. The 1973 models also had the new 5mph bumpers up front, although the rear bumpers only had to meet a 2.5mph standard; with 1974 being the first year for 5mph rear bumpers. Comparing shipping weights for the different cars, the increase from 1972 to 1973 was 300 to 600 pounds. Why mention this? Because even with about a quarter ton of extra metal welded in, these 1973 cars wouldn't stand a chance of passing today's crash standards.

For fuel economy, the best comparison available would be to use the first year the numbers were available to the public - 1975 - and list them for the base powertrain for each 1973 Chevrolet, with the understanding that the 1973 model could have been slightly lower, thanks to more emissions plumbing in those pre-catalyst times, and the '73 Nova/Vega having Powerglide 2AT vs the '75 Nova/Vega having a 3AT. Since those 1975 numbers were the actual CAFE city/highway figures - meaning they were the actual dynamometer results rounded to the nearest whole number - we would need to adjust them to compare today's cars.

To make things foggier, Chevrolet has been tight-lipped about the fuel economy figures for the 2013 Spark, not even providing a ballpark guess of what we might see when the car arrives in a couple of months. So if they won't speak for themselves, I will speak for them. Being a nice guy, I will guess that the Spark will end up at 28/39, just as a WAG and close enough for some Fun With Numbers in the sheet above. Another reason I am guessing 28/39 - It is the EPA estimate for the 2012 Honda Civic 1.8L 5AT, and so we can use the EPA/DOE spreadsheet to swipe the Civic's raw city/highway numbers and round them to integers so we can have our Disco-Era EPA ratings for a closer comparison.

So how does the new Spark compare to the Chevrolet of 1973 - Large, Medium, and Small?

The Spark is almost 6-1/2 feet shorter than the '73 Impala, about four feet shorter than a '73 Nova, and almost three feet shorter than a '73 Vega.
In curb weight, the Impala weighs almost a ton more, the Nova weighs about half a ton more, the Vega weighs almost a quarter ton more.
In horsepower, the Spark has 13 more than Vega, 15 less than Nova, and 60 less than Impala.
In pounds-per-horsepower, the Spark wins with 27.5 vs 29.3 for Impala, 33 for Nova, 39 for Vega. Let's have a moment of silence to listen to the auto media leadfoots wail about the anemic Spark when it's tiny engine is hauling less mass per horsepower than the ubiquitous Impala with 350 2bbl V8.
The Spark's automatic is a four speed, while the '73 Impala had a three speed, and the base engines in Nova and Vega were offered only with the two speed Powerglide. Attn: Auto mags - Please spare me the hysteria of the 85hp Spark's 0-60 times, when our small car of four decades ago had a 72hp engine and a two speed automatic with a low gear ratio close to the Spark's second gear.
Front legroom is within an inch on all cars, and 40-42 inches is the typical standard for almost any car built in the last half century.
Front and rear headroom are all about the same (within an inch), except for the Vega's front seat, which gives up about two inches.
Rear leg room, quietly omitted from GM's comparison, is nothing to be ashamed of. While the '73 Impala does offer an extra 3.6 inches, the '73 Nova sedan is about the same, and the '73 Vega is down almost half a foot in rear leg room.
Comparing hip and shoulder room on a "per passenger" basis (see above), the Spark beats all the '73s in almost every measurement of front/rear hip/shoulder.
In a mini-car, the cargo area is definitely an area where they trimmed the size. The Spark's 11.4 cubic feet is dwarfed by the '73 Impala's 20.5 (9 more), but not far off the Nova's 13.8 (2-1/2 more than Spark), but it beats the Vega hatchback's 9.3.
Comparing cargo area with rear seats folded, the Spark is rated at 31.2 cubic feet, the '73 Nova hatchback advertised 27.3 (4 less than Spark) and the '73 Vega hatchback promised 18.9 (12 less than Spark). And yes, with rear seat folded, the Spark has 50% more cargo space than the trunk of the '73 Impala.
With head and leg room so close, and per-passenger hip and shoulder room also close (except for the tight quarters in the Nova), the Spark offers passenger space on par with the Chevrolet cars we bought just as the OPEC embargo hit.
For that equivalent passenger space, the raw EPA numbers suggest that the Spark will travel three times as far as the Impala for each gallon of gas consumed. And the Nova wasn't much better. Even the Vega would only go half as far on a gallon compared to the Spark.

With a height of over five feet, the Spark should offer reasonably easy entry/exit, even considering the fitting of four necessarily stubby doors within its not-quite-eight-foot wheelbase. And once inside, all the basic dimensions are close to that of the interior of 2+ ton Impala that served as family-size car for several generations of buyers. While the Impala offered generous room for six, the Spark offers the same accommodations for four, and offers an average of 2.5 airbags per passenger, too.

Now, if you read a review of the Spark and the self-medicated editor bemoans the pedestrian powertrain, remember that with fewer pounds per horsepower, it's quicker than America's favorite full-size family car of 1973. And anyone who complains about interior space can be forced to sit in the rear seat of a '73 Nova or Vega before they click "Submit" on their article. While it's true that the Spark won't be called into service as a limousine, it does have more interior space that what we used to call "small cars" all those years ago. How did we ever survive?

Can this comparison be expanded to other "A" or "B" segment cars on the road today? Absolutely. But for today, the cheerfully flourescent advert by Chevrolet earns the Spark the spotlight for comparing the new urban commuter to the dinosaurs of four decades ago.