Grown-ups bask in Cubes' youthful glow
— -- Gary Musser of Las Vegas traded a Toyota Prius hybrid for his spanking new Nissan Cube, and loves to cruise the glittering Vegas Strip in the little boxy car he says is a "babe magnet."
Thing is, Musser's 71 and married. That means, for one thing, any magnetism is arm's-length. It also means car marketers might have shot wide of the mark with the newest small, tall boxes aimed to lure elusive young buyers.
Musser's outside the mainstream, but he's not as far afield as you might guess. Typical buyers of today's tall, boxy cars, not just Cube, are in their 40s, twice what you'd think from the cars' "hey, kids" marketing.
Starting with Honda's 2003 Element — Honda once touted it as "a dorm room on wheels" — through Toyota's 2004 Scion xB, the 2009 Cube and 2010 Kia Soul, automakers have been trying a formula popular in Japan for a decade or more: Draw youthful buyers with oddball, but eminently practical, cars that are pure rebellion against the swoop and slope that usually defines a sexy car.
Their roominess, cargo space and quirky looks may combine for "some staying power" in the market, says Stephanie Brinley, senior analyst at industry consultant AutoPacific. "Those boxes really do have body styles that are easy to live with, a level of practicality you just can't get" in other small vehicles.
What makes Soul, Cube, xB and Element stand out in the showroom is that they are so-called tall cars the industry mostly has resisted for the U.S. market, fearing they are out of sync with American tastes. While more traditional boxy cars that aren't tall, such as the Chrysler's PT Cruiser and BMW's Mini Cooper, have been successful, the move to overtly tall, boxy designs is a brave step.
Cube is riskiest currently because it's the most eccentric, Brinley says, but she expects it to hold steady at about 35,000 U.S. sales annually. It'll nose out Kia Soul's 30,000, she forecasts, because there are more Nissan dealers and Nissan is a better-known brand.
Related Stories
ABC News Live