The 2007 Nissan Versa has a secret.
It’s being marketed as one of a spate of new subcompact economy cars, arriving just as gasoline prices frighten the body politic.
But guess what? In the measurements that count, the Versa is a midsize car. The government certainly thinks so.
Now, there are different ways of taking the measure of an automobile. There’s the length from bumper to bumper. There’s wheelbase — the distance between the front and rear axles. There’s height. There’s width. Of course, there’s avoirdupois — the number of pounds when you put the car on a scale.
The United States government, however, classifies cars according to their interior volume. That seems reasonable, because what would be the point of having a car that stretched out to 20 feet and weighed 5,000 pounds, but could only seat two people?
The classifications, as determined by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), are largely unknown to most people, including professional automobile critics. So here they are:
    • Minicompact: Less than 85 cubic feet.
    • Subcompact: 85 to 99 cubic feet.
    • Compact: 100 to 109 cubic feet.
    • Midsize: 110 to 119 cubic feet.
    • Large: More than 120 cubic feet. 
That’s for total interior volume. It gets divided up   between the passenger and cargo space.