The statistics reveal a population time bomb: according to Ford the number of over-65 male drivers has grown by 89% in the past 20 years and over-65 women drivers by 212%. And the biggest growth in grey power is yet to come: in six years the first of the post-war baby boomers will hit 65.
The trend is not restricted to Britain. In China, the world’s fastest growing car market, the effects of the “one child” policy has increased the proportion of the elderly. By 2025 there will be 200m people over 65 years old and more than 400m by 2050 — the equivalent of the current population of the 25-member European Union.
The advantages of making cars user-friendly for older drivers is becoming ever more apparent to car makers so used to chasing the younger car buyer with swooping lines and improbable dynamics. They are being forced into a rethink.
“Car makers don’t like to admit they are making cars for people who are middle aged and older. Their advertising is targeted at the young. But the fact is that customers are getting older,” says Graeme Fudge, a spokesman for Mazda. “It is an enormous challenge everyone in the industry is going to have to embrace. It is an unpsoken truth that older customers are bigger in numbers and in spending power.”
In September, Mazda will launch the M5, a medium-sized MPV with large sliding doors for easy entry and exit. “The vehicle is designed with ease of access in mind for people who are not as supple as they once were,” says Fudge. “You have to be a contortionist to get in and out of some cars.”
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Mazda’s targeting of older drivers is part of a successful marketing strategy — it tripled sales in the three years to 2004, the fastest growth of any manufacturer. It is no coincidence that the average age of its customers is 40-45, well above that declared by most car firms.
Other car makers are catching on, and young car designers are being taught to study the ways of the older generation. “I tell my students to study how their parents and grandparents behave — how they move, how they grip things, how they see things,” says David Browne, head of transport design at Coventry University, a key recruiting ground for future car designers. “It is becoming ever more important to understand these issues.”
While British-based companies are just beginning to take on board the importance of attracting older drivers the notion is already far advanced in Japan, where the problem of an ageing population is even more acute than in Europe. The proportion of over-65s in Japan will rise from 20% today to 30% by 2030, meaning more than an extra 10m older people.
The diminutive Suzuki Wagon R+ (sold as the Vauxhall Agila in the UK) became the bestselling small car in Japan in the 1990s, thanks in part to its popularity with older drivers. The little Suzuki, which looks disconcertingly like a telephone box on wheels, has spawned a craze for tall, boxy vehicles that are grey-market friendly: tall means easy to get into and boxy means easy to park.
Suzuki is not alone. Concepts such as the Mitsubishi Se-Ro features swivelling seats for easy entry and a dashboard that converts into a table, while Toyota’s NLSV concept boasts electric sliding doors, a floor that is at step height and a roof high enough to stand up in, allowing an older person literally to walk into the car before sitting down.
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Neither are these innovations all in the future. Rear-view cameras that mean older people do not have to twist their heads and torsos to look behind when reversing are being introduced on a range of Nissan and Toyota models.
At next month’s Geneva Motor Show, Honda will display its 2006 Legend saloon featuring an Intelligent Night Vision System that uses heat sensors to detect pedestrians in the road ahead. Anything that assists night vision is particularly valuable to older drivers because medical research shows that the rods in the eye that determine vision in poor light are usually the first part of the eye to deteriorate in the over-65s.
Nissan already offers the Note in Japan (which will go into production in Sunderland in 2006 as the Tone) with a package of controls specifically aimed at drivers who are not as mobile as they used to be. The car boasts a system whereby the accelerator and brakes can be operated with the hands rather than feet and an electric seat that can be swivelled to the outside of the vehicle and lowered or raised by an electric motor via a wireless remote control to aid access and exit.
Already available on General Motors models in the United States is the eCall system, which will be fitted to most European models by 2009. It is an emergency call facility that can be activated if the driver becomes ill. Other innovations set to appear include seats that rise when the doors open, making it easier to step out of the car, simpler dashboards, and controls with switches that are chunky and colour-coded.
So it seems the future will not turn out as previously advertised. Forget all those sci-fi images of 21st-century streamlined sports cars whizzing down empty highways. Instead we will be stuck in traffic jams in four-wheeled cubes with roofs high enough for elderly gents to wear a top hat.
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And despite all the advertisements aimed at attractive young people, the future design of cars will in all probability be determined by the needs of their parents.