Think modern cars look bloated? Of course you do. Part of what you're seeing is the effect of European and Asian pedestrian-protection requirements that went live last decade. The idea is to leave enough space beneath the hood to keep a struck pedestrian's head from caving it in far enough to hit the top of the engine. So, you'd expect higher hoods and taller noses. But that little bit of air over the intake manifold ripples through and changes everything.





A minimum of 20 mm (0.8 inch) of clearance is required between the underside of the hood and the highest part of the engine or any other hard point such as the windshield-wiper motor or the HVAC plenum. This raises not only the front of the hood but also its trailing edge by at least 0.8 inch.

With the rear edge of the hood elevated, the entire cowl must be raised a like amount—or a bit more if the designers want a wedge-shaped profile. This moves the windshield base and the dash higher as well.

A taller cowl and dash force the front seats to be raised for visibility.

With people sitting higher in the car, the roof goes up to maintain headroom.

Now that the roof is higher, the beltline (the base of the side windows) has to be lifted to keep the car from looking bubbleheaded.

The higher beltline adds sheetmetal above the rear-wheel openings, reducing the wheel-to-body ratio.

Would you believe that pedestrian protection influences wheel sizes? With wheel openings relatively smaller than those on cars made before the regs, the 245/50-18s on, say, a base BMW 7-series don't look very big at all. The solution has been to fit 19- and 20-inch wheel/tire packages to replicate more attractive proportions.

*Mid- and rear-engined cars don't get a pass on pedestrian protection. The forward positioning of their cowls causes another set of problems, including keeping the unfortunate pedestrian's head clear of the wiper motor and the tough-to-crush base of the windshield. On a few such cars with short hoods and steeply raked A-pillars, carmakers use the windshield to catch the pedestrian and minimize injuries through the use of a thicker, flexible laminate layer between two sheets of glass.

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