THE idea that good things come in small packages has rarely played well with American car buyers. And who can blame them?

After all, a longstanding notion that bigger was always better, combined with gasoline at bargain prices compared with the rest of the world, led Detroit’s executives and engineers to direct their best efforts toward more profitable cars in the midsize and large classes. In the process, they sentenced their small cars to a starvation diet.

“This goes back to the domestic philosophy of ‘small cars equal small profit,’ ” said Jim Hall, managing director of 2953 Analytics, an auto consulting firm. “The philosophy was that you’re going to be low-profit, so you want to convince people to buy something bigger.”

Even Henry Ford’s early investors tried to persuade him to abandon his idea for the compact, efficient Model T and instead concentrate on big 6-cylinder touring cars because that’s where the money was. Though Ford prospered with the Model T, his business plan later changed, and in the postwar years hulking, powerful American cars prevailed.