Just a few years back, automakers Renault ran an ad campaign for the Clio coyly extolling its six-centimeter (2.3-inch) advantage over the competition: Size Matters!

It's not a message that you would have thought that the strapping Swedes would need telling. But a German court has just wrong-footed car manufacturers Volvo over precisely that point.

A judge in southern Germany ordered a Volvo dealer to compensate a man whose size 47s (US size 13) did not fit beneath the dashboard of his new Volvo C70 coupe.

The problem meant that he quite literally couldn't put his foot down. There was just not enough space around the gas pedal for his large leather shoes.

But his 29.4 centimeter-long feet were, in the court's view, not abnormally long. The judge in the town of Wiesloch said the carmakers should have catered for big feet.

Long in feet, but not short of arguments

The man, a travelling salesman, managed to squeeze five percent off the price of the car by arguing that there was not enough space for his shoes.

Under a court-supervised settlement, the buyer obtained a 1,700-euro (2,650$) refund to pay for a snug pair of sneakers that just fitted into the space. He was also compensated for the time spent changing back into street shoes each time he got out of the car to meet clients.

We'll just have to wait and see if the ruling unleashes an avalanche of similar complaints. Caveat Fiat!