Don’t be misled into believing that a large car will definitely have great legroom. Yes, many big cars do have lots of cabin space, but it’s not a given at all. The car’s underlying architecture plays a role, and so does its packaging, with really cleverly-designed compact cars providing large-car cabin space within a comparatively small footprint.
Many decades ago, a car’s physical size usually predicted its available cabin space. Length used to play a big role here, with longer cars giving more legroom both in front and on the rear seats, for obvious reasons. That’s how the American car industry ended up in a dead-end with their massive battle tanks of the 1950s and 1960s – it happened mostly in the quest for space, apart from size also equaling prestige in the American car-buyer’s mindset at the time.
But, while those Yank Tanks were often undeniably spacious, they were also extremely inefficient. Truth be told, their cabin accommodations were really quite cramped in relation to their overall sizes, because the engineers couldn’t really be bothered to optimise space utilisation if there was so much real estate to work with.
The 1959 Chrysler’s low and rakish roofline didn’t do its cabin’s legroom any favours.
European manufacturers had other priorities, though, with narrow city streets and high fuel prices (yes, even 50 years ago) conspiring to force the engineers to think about product optimisation instead of simply making their cars bigger and bigger. Efficiency became the name of the game, and various solutions were found to liberate more interior space in smaller cars – most of which we still employ today, and many of which have spilled-over to American manufacturers as well.
Building taller rather than longer
Instead of the low-wide-and-long doctrine preached by stylists in the USA, European cars have always been much smaller than their counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic. Consequently, space-efficiency has always played a large part in European car design, giving rise to innovative car architectural features like front-wheel drive with a transverse engine location, torsion-beam rear axles, and fuel tanks mounted under the rear seat.
ItalDesign Giugiaro’s 1978 Lancia Megagamma concept revolusionised the way cars could be packaged.
And then the monovolume arrived, and changed everything. Unveiled at the 1978 Turin motor show, Italdesign’s Lancia Megagamma demonstrated a new way to package a passenger car. By going taller, they managed to liberate the same interior volume as a longer, lower car, but without increasing its shadow’s size at all.
This Giugiaro concept car’s innovative tall-but-short “monovolume” architecture soon found its way into small cars like the Fiat Uno, from where it spread into the compact- and mid-sized market segments, giving rise to the “elevated roof” designs we frequently see in compact cars (and spawning the MPV body style in its ultimate iteration).
Elevating the rear seats makes it easier to liberate more legroom.
Headroom influences legroom
In the preceding decades, making each new car longer and lower was the expected course for progression of a model, but the 1970s fuel crises eventually killed-off that trend. Manufacturers around the world were forced to downsize their products, but they couldn’t do so while retaining the sleeker, low-line roofs of the past.
See, the lower a car’s roof becomes, the less headroom it has. And the less headroom it has, the more-reclined the seats need to be, and the closer they have to be mounted to the floor. Where does this leave the occupants’ legs? Stretched-out in front of them, just like in your favourite reclining chair at home. In short, a low roofline indirectly reduces the available legroom within the car’s footprint.
The Megagamma’s elevated roofline had the opposite effect. The seats could now be mounted in more-upright positions without robbing headroom, reducing the need for serious leg space in front of the seats. Compare sitting in an upright office chair with lounging in a low-set futon, and you’ll understand the difference in space utilisation.
Today’s luxury cars even allow the rear seat to use the front seat as a legroom expander.
The modern era
To a large extent, most new cars currently on the market take some influence from those early “one-box” designs, varying from the sit-up-and-beg driving position of a Renault Kwid to the elevated rear benches in family SUVs – in all cases, raising the roof allowed for more-efficient packaging of occupants.
That is not to say that all small cars have limo-like legroom, because there’s still only so much room to be found within a short car, no matter how tall, but they still offer much more space than comparably-sized cars from the past. And, in bigger cars, this effect is emphasised even further, to the point where a modern large sedan will easily eclipse the available legroom of even an old-school premium car.
Cars with the best legroom
We’ll only give a few examples here, because the choice is extremely wide. However, intelligent packaging of the car’s components and occupants allows some modern cars to shine a fair bit brighter than their contemporaries, so those are the car’s we’ll mention by name.
The Honda Jazz/Fit has remarkable legroom, thanks to its ingenious space utilisation.
Honda Jazz/Fit/WR-V
Perhaps the ultimate expression of the Megagamma philosophy, the first-generation Honda Jazz was a truly exceptional product. Really small on the outside, but with similar cabin space to a mid-sized hatchback and with a useable luggage compartment, the Jazz was a revelation when it arrived.
The Jazz’s secret lies in its Magic Seats, which capitalises on the fuel tank’s relocation. Instead of putting the fuel tank under the rear seat, Honda’s engineers moved it underneath the front seats instead, freeing-up a lot of space in the rear of the passenger compartment and creating a multitude of cargo storage options. The Fit continues this tradition, and is one of the small cars with the most legroom out there.
Compact SUVs maximise the gains from going tall but staying short.
Compact SUVs
When you consider the small footprint of a modern compact SUV, the amount of legroom on offer is pretty surprising – a current Suzuki Vitara can compete with a 1980s Mercedes E-Class both in front and at the rear, for instance, and the same applies to most of its opponents.
Once again, this body type’s elevated roofline create more headroom, which allows the engineers to re-position the seats for more legroom. However, most larger SUVs sacrifice legroom (especially at the rear) for deeper seat-backs, and are surprisingly impractical in this aspect, when compared to normal cars.
MPVs
Even the really small MPVs (such as the Suzuki Ertiga/Toyota Rumion twins) offer second-row legroom that’s quite disproportionate to their outer dimensions, and the Renault Triber does the same, one class down the ladder. Don’t expect to fit too much into their third rows though, as the last two seats are really only meant for occasional use.
Looking at larger MPVs, the larger Opel Zafira shines. This 8-seater (7-seater in “Life” trim) has literal tons of legroom for all occupants, as it should be for a vehicle that’s more than 5.3-meters in length, really. If you want masses of space for a comparative bargain price, this is the one to buy.
Other MPVs have similar cabin space benefits, but few have as much cabin space as well as a luggage area measuring more than 1000-litres with all seats in use. The Kia Carnival also deserve a special mention here, because it provides similar practicality, albeit packaged into a slightly smaller box.
You can even get a LWB Range Rover Evoque in China, for maximum rear-seat legroom!
Large sedans
Most luxury saloons suffer from comparatively limited rear legroom for their size, due to their sloping rooflines and thickly-padded seats. Fortunately, their manufacturers realise this, and offer their luxo-barges in long-wheelbase formats, which returns proper rear-seat legroom to the mix. So, while a short-wheelbase S-Class comes across as slightly claustrophobic in the rear, a long-wheelbase example is properly spacious.
The king of large sedan legroom has to be the Lexus ES, however. It’s only available in one wheelbase length, but there’s so much space already that a longer-wheelbase version isn’t even necessary. The secret is in its packaging, which employs FWD to reduce drivetrain intrusion into the cabin. Combine a large footprint with space-saving mechanical bits, and the result is arguably the biggest bargain limousine out there.
Keyword: Which cars have the best legroom?