If you were to ask some older folks what they thought was the so-called “golden age” of the automobile, the majority would say the 1960s or even the 1970s, when cars were becoming increasingly more luxurious and powerful and petrol cost nearly nothing. Yet despite this, I have always maintained that the golden era of the automobile started at the end of the 1970s and at the beginning of the 1980s.
The 80s was a time of technological breakthroughs in the automotive world with innovations and inventions such as ABS, airbags, the use of LCD dashboards, the advent of widescale turbocharging and the increasing popularity of diesel-powered cars, to name but a few.
However, the most significant contribution that the 80s gave the automotive world was the rise in popularity of the sports-utility-vehicle, or SUV as it became known. Although some SUVs, like the Ford Bronco, Chevrolet Blazer, Toyota Land Cruiser, Nissan Patrol, Range Rover and Mercedes Gelandewagen were already developed and being sold before 1980, some people still viewed a large four-wheel drive passenger vehicle as folly.
The reason why those people believed this was the following: if you had a family and wanted a car, you bought a big family saloon; if you wanted more space you bought a station wagon and if you were to go off-road or needed a workhorse, you bought a single- or double-cab pick-up. Nobody expected that a vehicle could blend all these aspects of modern life together but that’s exactly what the SUV did.
Like most major happenings of the Reagan era, the SUV became all the rage in America and manufacturers based outside the US duly started seeing the financial benefit of producing SUV models too. In fact, some manufacturers even started alliances with other makes in an attempt to benefit from the rise in SUV popularity. Honda, for example, began selling the Isuzu Trooper and Rodeo SUVs in America as the Acura SLX and Honda Passport/Jazz. They even sold the first generation Land Rover Discovery as the Honda Crossroad in Japan. In Korea, Hyundai began selling the first-generation Mitsubishi Pajero as the Galloper and did so right up until 2003.
General Motors used to engage in blatant badge engineering and sold SUVs built on the same platforms under different badges and names in attempt to squeeze maximum benefit from the SUV craze. The Chevrolet Tahoe was also sold as the GMC Yukon while the Chevrolet Suburban (of which I am a huge fan) was also sold as a GMC and as the ill-fated Holden Suburban in Australia. The latest Suburban also shares the same GMT900 platform as the Cadillac Escalade.
However it would seem that the once popular full-size SUV era is coming to an end as more people gravitate to the smaller and more fuel-efficient crossover utility vehicle or XUV. In some ways this can be seen as good because most of these crossovers are not four-wheel-driven but they still offer the same benefits as the full size SUV i.e. the raised driving position, spacious interior, butch looks and some even offer seating for up to seven occupants. At the same time they are lighter and more fuel efficient than SUVs.
On the down side, crossovers don’t have the bragging rights as full size SUVs and will never be able to go off-road which is a good thing as many owners sadly, never take their low-range equipped SUVs off-road. Manufacturers are now focusing on the development of crossovers and even discontinuing some models… In 2005, Ford stopped producing their massive Super Duty pick-up based Excursion and replaced it with a stretched version of the “smaller” Ford Expedition which was simply called the Expedition EL.
To illustrate just how popular crossovers have become, Ford sold 118 637 units of its Edge crossover (first seen in the James Bond movie Quantum of Solace) in 2010, but only sold 37 336 of the above-mentioned Expeditions that year. It’s the same story at GM where, during the same year, Chevrolet sold 149 979 Equinoxes and only 68 949 Suburbans.
In South Africa, crossovers are selling up a storm with models such as the BMW X1, Nissan Qashqai, Chevrolet Captiva, Nissan X-Trail, Hyundai ix35 and Kia Sportage twins selling in huge numbers. Although full-sized SUVs such as the BMW X5, Range Rover, Mercedes ML, Toyota Prado and Audi Q7 remain popular here, their sales are steadily declining when you look at the equivalent crossover models.
From a personal point of view, I have and still continue to love SUVs (apart from the Cadillac Escalade), but I also loathe those people who buy SUVs only to acquire status symbols or to park on sidewalks. Since 2007, our family has been the proud owner of a 2005 Nissan Pathfinder 2,5 dCi auto that has been used off-road many times, has had an off-road suspension upgrade and has been to Botswana and Namibia without any issues.
Many onlookers would call us insane for using such a vehicle off-road, but that’s why it was created; to go off-road with enough space and luxury for seven. Range Rover designer Charles Spencer King, after witnessing the amount of models used in towns or paraded as status symbols, once said he never designed it to be used for status or to be driven exclusively on tar. In fact, his statement could be applied to all low-range equipped SUVs.
The SUV boom of the 1980s seemed good at first, and to large extent it was, but soon they became pose mobiles instead of their original purpose as mass transport for families who liked to go off-road. Now though, with crossovers tempting people out of low-range equipped SUVs let’s hope that fewer big SUVs will be used for snob value and more for their original purposes.
