>is the only reason this doesn't exist because of ever increasing regulations?
Pretty much. They preclude that car from actually being cheap enough that people would buy it over a nicer used car and as the new car market skews higher and higher end the used car market skews likewise making the competition stiffer.
>about all new cars looking completely ridiculous.
The front body work is bounded by pedestrian safety requirements in the EU and aerodynamics. The rooflines and beltlines are bounded by US safety requirements. It's no surprise that the designs all converge.
Airbags, active suspension systems, ABS, backup cameras, etc all increase the cost of cars. Though I dont know how much of that is tied to increasing price of used cars - that seems to have more to do with Cash for Clunkers taking a huge amount of used cars out of the used car market, while it put a bunch of people in new cars, it also skewed the pricing for used cars higher - it took an entire generation of used cars out of the market - which continues to effect pricing today.
Electronic stability control is not active suspension, those are very different things. ESC isn't really even part of the suspension setup at all, it modulates the brakes in response to steering angle input & a yaw sensor.
Pretty much. They preclude that car from actually being cheap enough that people would buy it over a nicer used car and as the new car market skews higher and higher end the used car market skews likewise making the competition stiffer.
>about all new cars looking completely ridiculous.
The front body work is bounded by pedestrian safety requirements in the EU and aerodynamics. The rooflines and beltlines are bounded by US safety requirements. It's no surprise that the designs all converge.