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Not true. I have owned new (and newer) compacts, like my MINIs, and none scrape over bumps or divots (unless by "slightest" you mean one foot tall bumps and car sized potholes 6-8" deep).
Actually the mini's ground clearance is 4'9", so it is going to bottom out on potholes that are 3.5" to 4" deep or speed bumps of the same size unless you are barely moving so there is no bounce. I would not want to drive on in Michigan. Big potholes are everywhere. Most of the other small cars I could think of had 5-6" ground clearance. Not much. I am not sure what the 1970s cars had, but it did seem better with most of them.
however not all the older cars had high ground clearance. My LeMans bottomed out constantly. We called it "Sparks" because when you went over a bump or dip at night, everyone would yell sparks and look out the back for the fireworks show.
If you want ground clearance today, there are CUVs and SUVs that are somewhat better.
Why can't an automaker bring these monsters back? There's definitely a nostalgia market, and that's the kind of car that can just eat up the miles on long highway trips. I'd get one.
Cars just aren't as fun any more.
I cannot believe nobody has mentioned this already...but they have! At least in smaller urban or rural areas the majority of vehicles around me are behemoths that make those early 70's sedans and hardtops look positively svelte by comparison.
What? There are great dinosaurs roaming the highways and byways of this great continent again? Yup. And with $2.50/gal gas hanging around, they probably will for quite some time.
The beasts I speak of are trucks. Well, not trucks in the sense of what you and I grew up with, where there was enough room for a person to drive and maybe a second person to help unload, but the modern, sub-urban, minivan-posing, driveway-hogging, Gas N' Sip-foraging utility vehicle. Four doors, a full frame (sometimes), at least 8 cylinders, 10 - 14 mpg, and room for 5-7 people. Sound familiar? The desires of Americans are manifest in the biggest vehicle they can buy, 'cause we love room! We would rather commute in something twice as expensive to operate, because one day we might take six people to lunch or tow a rented U-haul and it's un-American not to have that reserve capacity.
For a rough comparison, I've picked the interior size winner that held the crown through all of the seventies (in width according to GM, who might be a little biased the '72 Cadillac De Ville, and in the other corner, in the spirit of monsters from the isle of Japan, the '15 Armada!
Examples:
1972 Sedan De Ville vs 2015 Nissan Armada
Weight 5400lbs/5963lbs
Length 227.4in/209in
Horsepower 375 SAE/390 NET (modern NET numbers are much better in reality)
MPG 10-14 / 14-19 (admittedly more accurate measurements today)
Front Shoulder Room 64.3in/63.8in (wow that's a close one! )
So really, they're still around, just safer and taller. How about that? What would be interesting is comparing prices in equivalent dollars, but I'm just not that patient of a researcher.
*Stats from Google, NissanUSA, and Wikipedia. Not intended to be perfect, just close enuf.
Actually the mini's ground clearance is 4'9", so it is going to bottom out on potholes that are 3.5" to 4" deep or speed bumps of the same size unless you are barely moving so there is no bounce.
If you're driving through potholes like that, you get what you deserve. Even in higher ground clearance vehicles, you're gonna bend a rim or bend a suspension arm unless you slow down. IN 40 years of driving on both coasts I've NEVER driven through a pothole deeper than about an inch and even then it was a small one with a 4x4 that I didn't care about.
Point is, a blanket statement like I was responding to is stupid, as it's barely true for ONE small area of the country.
Back then I think most adult car owners with families were kinda like my dad: devoted to a particular make (Oldsmobile in his case), and expected to trade it in for a new model every 2-3 years.
If you're driving through potholes like that, you get what you deserve. Even in higher ground clearance vehicles, you're gonna bend a rim or bend a suspension arm unless you slow down. IN 40 years of driving on both coasts I've NEVER driven through a pothole deeper than about an inch and even then it was a small one with a 4x4 that I didn't care about.
Point is, a blanket statement like I was responding to is stupid, as it's barely true for ONE small area of the country.
Never in my 50 years of driving have I ever heard of anyone spending 40 years limited to driving up and down their own driveway.
big clumsy gas guzzling beasts, grew up around them and don't miss them at all. If you feel the need for something large by huge you can still buy a Suburban (we own one and work it like a rented mule) so really they have never left.
And news flash, cars are getting bigger every year. The MINI models keep growing and growing.
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the '72 Cadillac De Ville, and in the other corner, in the spirit of monsters from the isle of Japan, the '15 Armada! 
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