Walk into a car dealership in Europe or Japan, and you can find tiny hatchbacks, narrow city cars, and compact models that seem almost perfectly suited to crowded streets. Walk into an American dealership... and the selection can look very different. Even the smallest vehicles on sale are increasingly dressed up as crossovers.

 

That's strange when you consider how useful a genuinely small car can be. They're easier to park, cheaper to fuel, and often less expensive to buy.

 

Yet the American market has spent decades moving in the opposite direction, with SUVs and pickups taking over showroom space once occupied by subcompacts and sedans. So why doesn't America have more small cars?