The extinction of cars with four doors – sedans – proceeds apace. Subaru has just announced it will be ending production of the Legacy sedan, which will mean Subaru joins the growing ranks of brands that only sell crossovers and five-door hatchbacks that are effectively the same thing, just a little less high off the ground.
GM’s Cadillac division is not far behind. Two of its last sedans – the CT4 and CT5 – are also going away (the CT5 may be revived at some unspecified future fate, according to GM). Production of both cars will end in early 2026, so if you want a car from Cadillac – rather than a crossover or an SUV – better hurry.
Neither Chevy nor Ford sells cars anymore (unless you count the Mustang, which is hardly selling, not because it’s a bad car but rather because it has become such an expensive car that not many people can afford one).
Some will say – and there is truth in what they say – that the sedan is dying a natural death, the cause of which is the sedan’s impracticality. Specifically, the lack of cargo-carrying capacity, a function of the fact that sedans have trunks that are separated from the passenger compartment and thus only a few things fit in the there, whereas a crossover of the same overall size will typically have two-to-three-times the space in terms of cubic feet and much more usable space, because the cargo area is not walled off from the passenger compartment and thus large/long/oddly-shaped items can be carried that would never fit in a trunk.
Many people also like that crossovers ride higher than cars, so you don’t feel lorded-over by all the higher-riding crossovers and trucks and SUVs all around you.
All of these things are true. But there is more truth to this sunsetting of sedans than just that.
It is also true that compliance pressure has helped to push sedans off the market. Specifically, the bizarre, fatuous and without any constitutional standing federal “fuel efficiency” diktas, which the federal government began diktating back in the mid-1970s. The fatuous basis of these diktas – which are formally known as Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards – was that absent government diktats, the vehicle manufacturers would only manufacture “gas hog” vehicles and the poor people would have no choice but to buy such vehicles. Never mind that before there was such a thing as CAFE, there were fuel efficient vehicles available for sale that were bought by people who wanted frugal cars. The most obvious example being the VW Beetle, which sold in the millions.
The fatuity is based on the imbecility that the market does not determine what gets manufactured – assuming the government doesn’t have its thumb on the scales. That the manufacturers would just keep right on manufacturing what buyers didn’t want to buy – absent government involvement.
The lack of constitutional basis for the diktats also ought to be obvious. The federal government is nowhere empowered to order vehicle manufacturers to meet arbitrary gas mileage “standards” and by doing this, impose costs on the manufacturers that are necessarily passed on to car buyers.
One of these costs being smaller, less practical – and less appealing cars.
CAFE diktats force vehicle manufacturers to make all their vehicles more “efficient.” The easiest way to do that was to make them smaller and lighter and to put smaller engines in them. CAFE is why – circa 1975 – a Chrysler Cordoba was considered “small” but by today’s standards, would qualify as full-size. The Cordoba was also rear-wheel-drive and came standard with a V8 engine. It had a big trunk because it was a big car – even though it was considered “small” by 1975 standards.
Within just a few years, the Cordoba had been downsized. It got much smaller and lighter and came with a six rather than an eight and – for these reasons – became less appealing. By 1983, it was cancelled – and replaced by the K-cars, which were even smaller and came with four cylinder engines.
Just one example to make the point about the effect that CAFE had on what was once the car market. 
But why were cars replaced by crossovers? Didn’t CAFE affect them also? Yes, but not at first. Through the ’70s and into the ’80s and ’90s, CAFE diktats were more stringent for passenger cars – which included sedans but not trucks. Trucks were used as the end-run around CAFE by converting them into SUVs such as the original Ford Bronco II (based on the Ranger pickup) and the original Ford Explorer (also based on the Ranger). These SUVs were held to a looser CAFE standard, which made it possible to manufacturer these larger/more practical vehicles as an alternative to downsized cars.
Crossovers arose as a way to get around the clunky handling characteristics of the early SUVs; crossovers looked like SUVs but were basically cars, built on the modern downsized car front-wheel-drive/all-wheel-drive layout with a small four cylinder engine (typically). CAFE still applied – and applies today – to these crossovers but now there is almost no alternative to them, other than an SUV or a truck. 
Put another way, government – via CAFE and also “safety” standards – has almost completely homogenized the form of new vehicles such that while there are different makes, it is hard to tell to tell one model apart because they all look pretty much the same and are pretty much the same.
It’s been a kind of slow-motion Sovietization of what was once the new car market. The handful of stragglers that remain gets smaller each year. Soon, very soon, the car will be like the Aurochs – a creature known only in legend and by those who remember.
. . .
If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.
We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079
PS: Get an EPautos magnet or sticker or coaster in return for a $25 or more one-time donation or a $10 or more monthly recurring donation. (Please be sure to tell us you want a magnet or sticker or coaster – and also, provide an address, so we know where to mail the thing!)
If you’d like a Baaaaa hat or other EPautos gear, see here!
I must disagree that SUVs have larger cargo carrying space than a sedan. My 2001 Maxima SE has a larger trunk capacity than any SUV I have seen plus a rear seat that folds down to allow longer items to be transported. It is one of the reasons I continue to repair, rebuild, repaint, etc an almost 25 year old car. It is simply the best vehicle I have ever owned.
Hi Gwyneth!
It depends. And it’s important to compare same size vehicles. Your Maxima is a mid-sized sedan and it has a trunk about 15 cubic feet, if I remember correctly; it might be closer to 18. A current mid-sized crossover – a vehicle with about the same footprint – will generally have as much cargo space behind its second (or even third) row as you have space in your trunk and much more (70-80 cubic feet is typical) of available space when the third and second row are folded down.
Just saw a Facebook post where Jim Farley says that Ford will be reintroducing dedans…ids it true or noit? No idea.
Morning, Steve!
Yes, Farley has indicated Ford may produce a sedan again… for “aero” (read, compliance) reasons. See: https://fordauthority.com/2024/06/ford-ceo-jim-farley-says-company-could-build-sedans-again/
That down-sized Cordoba (and Dodge corporate twin, the Magnum) came standard with a slant-six, but also offered the 360 c.i. V8.
Noooooooooooooo. I was hoping the caddy sedans would stay a lot longer. Dumb move GM, the only cars that competed with the EU’s finest, and held their own against them too. Wish I knew why they didn’t sell better vs the EU stuff, probably reputation, which takes a long time to fix and get better.
Ohhh well, our Ct4 is still very young with low miles, we’ll keep it going as long as we can. IMO, gm’s best sedans ever.
GM is heading for a planned and engineered bankruptcy, courtesy of Scary Mary berra.
Pick up used sedans and coupes while you can, I’m doing my best …
Some of it is the decline of fashion, or at least a redefinition of it. Used to be people would dress up. It was expected that you wore a suit to church, a sport jacket to the party and a golf shirt was worn on the golf course. Good riddance to all that, but we did loose style. Look around at your fellow Walmart shoppers’ footwear. None of it actually is doing what it was marketed to do, which certainly is not pushing a shopping cart full of sugar and junk food around the megamart. Hiking shoes aren’t worn hiking, running shoes are rarely used for running, and the only people who wear proper work shoes are those whose job requires a steel toe.
Call it aspirational branding. “I’ll buy these running shoes and get back in shape.” Or “I really enjoyed hiking around Zion National Park last summer, maybe I’ll start hiking on weekends.” Cars are marketed the same way. The crossover is shown running across the snow, the dirt road or some high mountain cliff far from everything. Of course that’s what you want, not some tired old saloon car. Way back when the ad featured someone driving the sedan to the club, where it would be part of an entrance. Keys tossed to the valet, who just helped the wife out of the passenger seat, and walk in for drinks, dinner and dancing. But that’s right out now, drunk driving and such. So it’s back to nature, hinting that somehow nature rejoices at your selection of automobile.
It’s too bad Trump isn’t acceptable to the left. He really might have brought style and decorum back to America. Instead we get old folks protesting in sweatpants and T-shirts.
I think a small part of it also is the number of fatsos we have in society when one looks around nowadays. These types have a more difficult time folding themselves into a sedan’s seat, and thus opt for the SUV or crossover for more ‘belly room’.
I think there’s something to that, Vince!
If 90 percent of the population had a normal BMI – as was the case within living memory of anyone 50 or older today – there might be more cars left on the road!
I was watching this video the other night of this guy who has an unrestored 1968 Ford Falcon that he daily drives. Straight-six engine; manual transmission; rubber floor covering; vinyl bench seats; ignition switch in the dash; cranj windows. Gets 26MPG. Parts are still readily available, since such cars were made largely of universal common parts shared across many models and manufacturers. No electronics of any kind. A ral car that is 57 years old and can still do what it was designed to do; is cheap and simple to maintain and repair; and will still be going 30 years from now if reasonably cared for. THAT is a car! That’s the kind of car I want. Dude only paid a few thousand dollars for it.
I see Ford Falcons around here from time to time and think they look pretty cool. Owning one might one day be the last, greatest F-U to those responsible for this boring, homogenized world. A menu consisting of no real choices. Six million flavors of jell-o, is still jell-o.
15 years ago most ‘Sedans,’ IMO, already looked very similar., I’m sure this Sovietization began well before that though. Could be a case study in the success of incrementalism vis a vi the frogs in the slowly boiling water. It was cute back then, but still required a lot of patience to listen to my wife extol the virtues of one new car over the other, based solely on a feeling brought on by a commercial. That feeling was sold to her the same way they sell us all the other lies they spew on a daily basis. Fortunately, she’s awoke from the either now, thanks to the new Subaru we leased, and rentals we’ve driven lately. She finally agrees that the Sisyphean badgering and nannying isn’t worth some new car smell/feeling. Now, if I could just get her to love driving a stick shift…
‘I guess I am just an old fart who wants things to make sense.’ — Mark in BC
The first rule of
FightClown Club is, ‘It doesn’t have to make sense.‘THanK YoU for you’re AttenTion to this iMportaNt Matter!!!11!
I get it, Jim H. I’ve said for years it’s not supposed to make sense. The world in which we now live is designed for you to accept the contradictory, submit and obey. You are not to question the lunacy before your eyes. You are to be an obedient cog in The System.
The motto for the coming global tyranny should be, Don’t Question Your Betters.
‘It’s been a kind of slow-motion Sovietization.’ — eric
Yes. Terms such as ‘sport-utility vehicle’ and ‘crossover’ once were simply convenient labels for automotive engineers and marketers. Now fedgov regulators actually have established definitions of them for CAFE purposes, which makers must design their vehicles to meet — and in the case of pickups, exploit, since a larger footprint reduces the required mileage.
Those of a religious bent will recognize a process of canonification, in which certain doctrines and texts are adopted for posterity and become impossible to question or change.
From the offbeat little European cars of the post WW II era to Japan’s kei trucks of today, a whole range of small, economical vehicles (wasn’t that the point?) fall outside the canonical categories in terms of envelope, mileage, safety, and emissions, and thus become mala prohibita — contraband.
Neither the ‘crats nor the elected officers and representatives who theoretically supervise them are capable of designing vehicles. They would totally fail at being butchers, bakers and candlestick makers, much less manufacturers. But they deign to regulate a broad swath of industry into oblivion.
And so the sun sets on America’s dying empire. By 2035, our fastest path to Mamdani’s government food store may be by rickshaw. Yes, we have no bananas. 🙁
All part of walling off the market for the intrenched players. The people running the show are old enough to remember the entry of Japan in the 1970s and 80s, no way they’re letting that happen again!
Funny thing is that with fold down rear seats a sedan is usable for moving long boards and smaller pieces of plywood. I’ve moved everything from 5hp snow blowers, 6000 watt generators and 2×10’s in my Camry.
That said when it finally becomes unrepairable I’ll probably replace it with an older small pickup.
I’ve been driving Dads 05 Taurus wagon for several months as a daily. I’ve found its roof rack better suited and easier loading for things like 16 foot 2x12s than anything short of a trailer. Simply load them on at a very convenient height and 2-3 ratchet straps, works better than dragging a trailer to town and way better than a pickup. It goes without saying that 8 footers easily go inside.
Per Psychology Today: “Cognitive dissonance is a term for the state of discomfort felt when two or more modes of thought contradict each other.”
To wit, what is Cadillac thinking?
They cancel the only cars in their lineup while at the same time start an F1 effort? Where’s the global hyper-car to go along with the racing effort. Not to mention their involvement in IMSA for quite some time now. And their teevee ads seem to be directed toward urban women of a dusky hue.
I guess I am just an old fart that wants things to make sense.
The end is nigh.
Hi Mark.
For that matter what ever happened to “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday”?
All the ads now seem to show only women and minorities driving cars now. I’ve solved that problem by not planning to buy any of them. They have spent years insulting and denigrating white men so f*ck them.
Amen, Landru –
Stock Car racing has become boring; a pack of look-alike cars that are as “stock” as I am female running around a circle, driven by “personalities” more so than drivers.
It is the WWF on wheels. Entertaining when you’re 13. Gets old once you’re over 18.
It’s still alive and well.
If a Toyota wins the Daytona 500 this February, I’m running straight to the Toyota dealer and getting me the rear drive Camry with the pushrod V8!
Me too! But only if it comes with a 750 double pumper……….
Yes. The ads are not about selling cars, they are about selling moral virtue to people with enough money to buy the car.
Hence, nearly all advertisements show almost nothing but Negroes and women, because the highest moral virtue of our society is the debasement of the white man and the worship of blacks and women.
Well then X they can do all the work now that I’m pretty well retired. I’m sure they’ll be able to maintain those refineries and power plants I used to work in.