[yamtaddle]

Oh, yeah, it's a combination of safety changes and shape-optimization for fuel efficiency. I didn't say it was bad, just that it's less-pleasant to go on a lazy Sunday drive in a modern car than it was in cars back when taking an aimless drive was a fairly common leisure activity.

I've been in some of those older cars more recently and yeah, they're just big and feel very open—and, anyway, these cars' being common pre-dates my childhood; though, even my sporty late-90s high school sedan felt more open than newer cars, because it was, due to all those safety changes—better visibility, less of a feeling of the car's interior trying to crush in toward you—and it wasn't a spacious-interior car for the time.