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Ward Cleaver drove a mid-size sedan and that may be at the heart of the problem.

Who wants to be perceived as Beaver Cleaver's dad, a role played by the Hugh Beaumont in the 1950s and 1960s comedy Leave it to Beaver (a show now immortalized in cyberspace, by the way)?

And speaking of Beaumont, the 1964 Chevrolet Beaumont was a particularly dull, boxy four-door sedan, and that brings us to the decline and perhaps fall of the mid-size sedan.

The mid-size family market of vehicles – minivans, intermediate SUVs and intermediate passenger cars – has been in steep decline for more than a decade, but mid-size sedan sales are in free fall.

Yes, consumers have been moving away from the classic Ward Cleaver ride – a four-door sedan that he “drove like a snail,” in the immortal words of Eddie Haskell.

Dennis DesRosiers of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants reports that sales of the classic four-door intermediate passenger car have dropped “from a peak of 308,464 units [in 1996] to only 207,545 units [last year] – 24.1 per cent of the market to only 12.7 per cent of the market.”

Most of those buyers, says DesRosiers, have moved to smaller “C” (compacts) and “B” (subcompact) cars, “chasing better fuel efficiency and value for money by buying a smaller vehicle.”

The shift away from mid-size sedans has been especially stark. Not so long ago, the Top 10 list of best-selling cars was populated with mid-size rides like the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord. No longer. This year's Top 10 are a string of compacts and subcompacts.

Meanwhile, minivan sales have declined to a point where most manufacturers are moving out of the segment entirely. Minivans have an image issue, naturally, though they remain the most practical and affordable transportation available today.

Mid-size car sales have been hurt by the image bug, too, along with declining fleet sales in a tough economy. The point is, says DesRosiers, mid-size vehicles sales are in steep decline.

“This is the segment that is collapsing in Canada, declining from a peak of 44.4 per cent of the total market in 1996 to only 24.7 per cent of the market today,” he says. “That translates into 250,000 fewer sales in this segment. Sales in 2008 were only 403,870 units, down 7.6 per cent from the previous year.”

DesRosiers argues that the manufacturers “have done a masterful job in the compact car and light truck segments, delivering performance on all levels with a much smaller package.”

And because “Canadians have always tended to buy the least amount of vehicle they can afford – the exact opposite from Americans – when the OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] improved their small-vehicle package, a few hundred thousand Canadians abandoned their larger vehicles and moved down market,” he says.

“And understand, they did not abandon performance since for the most part these smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles delivered equal and sometimes superior performance.”

Yes, but the same holds true for mid-size sedans. Especially four-cylinder versions that deliver excellent fuel economy and very good performance.

Buyers looking for an appealing and fuel-efficient mid-size car or crossover wagon have plenty to choose from in the $22,000 to $32,000 range.

Look, many people really do not want to drive a smaller vehicle; they simply must in order to control costs and get excellent fuel efficiency.

However, if you want room for your family and its stuff in a vehicle that is safe, affordable and fuel efficient, the marketplace is awash in sweeteners and deals designed to slow the decline in an already stalled marketplace.