{"id":242244,"date":"2010-01-28T12:28:11","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T17:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.team-bhp.com\/forum\/team-bhp-reviews\/74446-linea-city-ergonomics-comparo.html"},"modified":"2010-01-28T12:28:11","modified_gmt":"2010-01-28T17:28:11","slug":"linea-and-city-an-ergonomics-comparo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/242244","title":{"rendered":"Linea and City: An Ergonomics Comparo"},"content":{"rendered":"
THE REASON:
\nAfter the stunning looks of Linea wear off and you step in, you are greeted by an anticlimax of ‘cramped’ (for the class) rear space. I’ve been baffled by why Fiat would do this to such a big (huuuge, actually) and lovely car. Is it more exaggerated perception or real facts? I went on a fact finding exercise and here are the results. The comparison is with ANHC because most people compare these two cars. I tweaked line sketches of both cars from their profile photos to a reduced scale of 1:100 and compared them. The downscaled dimensions are faithful to a max error of 2-3 mm over 4500 mm. So here goes.<\/p>\n

Linea (L: 4560 mm, H: 1487 mm, WB: 2603 mm):
\nAttachment 276209<\/a><\/p>\n

City (L: 4420 mm, H: 1470 mm, WB: 2660 mm…hmmm?):
\nAttachment 276210<\/a><\/p>\n

And the superimpose (green\/blue lines Linea, red for City). Note how similar both cars are:
\nAttachment 276211<\/a><\/p>\n

Yellow ovals 1 & 2 show bigger windows of Linea. Steering for both are similarly placed as are all doors, ORVM and most other things except the extended derriere of Linea. Circle 3 showing longer WB for City made me go back through both cars’ websites and recheck the figures and yes, the longer Linea has a shorter WB than the City.
\nThe longer WB means more cabin space for the City (if intelligently managed). In this case, it seems to have been used for liberating more space in front footwell since rest everything is a good overlap.
\nPurple line 4 is the rear seat backrest for Linea and Line 5 is for City. Instantly, more rear legroom for City here. Also, the greater recline would lengthen headroom. The Linea rear passenger has lost out on the view of rear quarter glass which is available for the City passenger. Part of the claustrophobic feeling is explained, no? But there’s more.
\nTake a look at the interior of both cars.<\/p>\n

City:
\nAttachment 276216<\/a><\/p>\n

Linea:
\nAttachment 276217<\/a><\/p>\n

The photo of Linea interior is taken to hide limited rear legroom. If the front seat is brought to the same position as in the City’s pic, rear legroom would be severely reduced. Imagine if tall drivers push it fully back. Apart from this, the pushed back front seat would eat into the rear window space and the claustrophobic feeling is enhanced. For short and medium height drivers, the middle positioned driver seat would be closer to the dash and the steering thus explaining the in-your-face steering column feeling reported by some people, especially those who found the interior space otherwise satisfactory. But for these drivers, this would remain true for other cars too. <\/p>\n

The forward positioning of rear seats in Linea and the long rear end should liberate humongous boot space but oops, it has 500 L of it compared to the 506 L of the City. Either the boot space in Linea is poorly managed (boomy sound in 200-300Hz range in rear speakers…hmmm?) or one of these figures is simply not true. <\/p>\n

ALL this said, how much of a concern would this restricted rear space pose? Not many would push the driver’s seat fully back, most would keep it in some middle position (considering the average height of Indians), and a few would keep it a little more forward. On the other hand, one doesn’t expect economy space in a looong car like this. Then again, one doesn’t expect a small engine of 1.3\/1.4 in a heavy car like this. But THEN again, one doesn’t get a big (and loaded to the teeth) car like this at the economy price of Linea and this price has to reflect somewhere. So we get some compromise on plastic quality here and there, some lack of fit\/finish alongwith the less than luxurious room.
\nThis economy vs luxury logic got me thinking: if you DO pay the higher price to acquire a similary big car (give and take a few 4-5 centimeters of overall length), so that you can be chauffer driven while sprawled on the rear seat, DO you get a luxuriously spacious cabin? Some comparison is called for:<\/p>\n

Octi Cedia Crolla Optr SX4 cClass Civic City Linea
\n4507 4595 4530 4500 4490 4526 4545 4420 4560 L
\n1731 1695 1705 1725 1735 1728 1750 1695 1730 W
\n1455 1455 1490 1445 1570 1426 1450 1470 1487 H
\n2512 2600 2600 2600 2500 2715 2700 2660 2603 WB
\n0134 0175 0170 0173 0190 0130 0170 0160 0165 GC
\n0820 0850 0920 0880 0870 0870 0930 0920 0860 Max rear legroom[all mm]<\/p>\n

Sometimes you do get luxury, sometimes not, regardless of the money. However, the point is not economy. The point is ergonomics. What did you do with all that space Fiat? We wouldn’t have minded a little smaller boot at all for those extra 5 cm of rear legroom.
\nOther tidbits:
\nNote the high and aft positioning of gear knob in Linea, this would lead to more acutely bent elbow during gearshift and cause driver’s hand to brush co-passenger. Also, the distance from the center armrest is less which would foul and force you keep armrest up in city driving. The door armrests look angled downwards at a funny angle. Also note the neat middle headrest at the rear.
\nMy 2 cents.<\/div>\n

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THE REASON: After the stunning looks of Linea wear off and you step in, you are greeted by an anticlimax of ‘cramped’ (for the class) rear space. I’ve been baffled by why Fiat would do this to such a big (huuuge, actually) and lovely car. Is it more exaggerated perception or real facts? I went […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4820,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4820"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}