I’m a member of a vanishing minority group. I don’t own an SUV as my everyday driver passenger car. As we all know, SUV is an acronym for Sport Utility Vehicle. The definition of what constitutes an SUV is in the eye of the beholder. It features 4-wheel drive (FWD) or all-wheel drive (AWD). It’s built on a light truck chassis or maybe a regular unit body car chassis. It has high ground clearance or maybe not. Those who study automotive history will likely be in agreement that it all can be traced back to the post-WWII civilian Jeep CJ. I’ll argue that the Jeep of that era was really not an SUV but was the seed from which it grew. It introduced to the driving public the idea that they could have a work horse off-road machine that was equally at home at highway speeds on the road.
The first vehicle that we could call an SUV was the Jeep station wagon which was introduced in 1946. It was a fully enclosed vehicle with all the attributes of a “Sunday-go-to-meeting” passenger car: seating for the whole family, heater, doors, roll-down windows, etc. It was built on a Jeep pickup truck chassis so it could go anywhere a Jeep CJ could go. International Harvester recognized this new market and introduced the Scout in 1960. Ford jumped in with their Bronco in 1966, followed by Chevrolet with the Blazer in 1969. All of these offerings featured utilitarian boxy body designs on basic light truck-type chassis.
The first American SUV that actually looked like a family passenger sedan was the AMC Eagle introduced in 1980. It was, in fact, a car. The Eagle was an AMC Concord body on a Jeep chassis. Credit for first designing a 4-wheel drive car from the ground up probably should go to Subaru who did so in the mid ‘70s. In terms of sheer numbers, Subaru may well be the dominant player in the field today. Although they did in the past, they do not offer a 2WD car.
Every major automobile marque in the world today offers an SUV in its line-up. Even the traditional luxury and high-end sports car makers have gotten in on the action. If you want to impress your friends with a luxury name plate, you can buy a Cadillac Escalade, Porsche Cayenne, or Ferrari Purosangue. Imagine His Highness off-roading in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce Cullinan. I do recall a news photo of Elizabeth II driving the kids to school in a Land Rover. She had some experience behind the wheel as an ambulance driver during WW II.
There is now an SUV for everyone’s tastes and everyone has one, except for me of course.
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