It wasn't until Jim Tudor got his new Honda Element that he noticed a quirk in its design. Why was the boxy vehicle's sunroof over the empty back seat instead of his spot up front?
"I found out that it's supposed to be for my surfboard," says Tudor, who's 56, the grandfather of two and never surfs anywhere but the Internet. "It was really only after the fact, when I started doing a little reading on the car, that I found out I wasn't supposed to be the one driving it."
It turns out many of the people buying the Element -- which looks like a cross between a minivan and a Hummer -- aren't the young surfers and mountain bikers Honda expected. It's the same for many buyers of Toyota's Scion models.
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