As I can no longer locate the relevant thread in “WHY,” I am starting a new discussion.
My first car was a 1938 Ford V8 of which I was of course extremely proud.
Moderate sized American built cars were quite popular in Australia for several decades (say 1930 – 1960) possibly because they were cheaper/easier to acquire than English and European cars. However we lost interest by the time the genuine Yank Tank became the norm for Americans: those ugly, unweildy monstrosities which were as thirsty as they were long. By Australian standards (most of what we pay for petrol goes to the Government) petrol was absurdly cheap in America.
But while the trend to ever larger cars continued in the USA, Australia (backed by General Motors) produced the first Holden, which became the standard family car in Australia: a position it held for decades.
First produced more than half a century ago, the Holden was built with unitary contruction: no separate chassis, hence less weight. It had a modest but adequate 6 cylinder engine, room for 6 average sized adults, and because of its extremely light overall weight and modest engine capacity, was extremely economical.
Gradually more and more English, European and Japanese cars were introduced toAustralia, but the choice of the buyer was predominantly economy over size. Thus the Morris Minor and Mini Minor, and Volkswagen became enormously popular.
As the Yank Tank grew large and thirster, the choice of most Australians was towards the smaller, more economical car.
The point is that, compared with all other countries in the world, Americans consumed far more petrol per capita than any other country. And as far as the argument introduced somewhere in the original discussion about isolation of population leading to a dependaence on private transport, that argument applies equally, if not more so, to Australia.