SUVs, the birth of the sport utility vehicles

In the beginning

Sport utility verhicles. It is full of it. Also in the Amsterdam PC Hooftstraat where people are annoyed by SUV from the bakbeesten that are not very 020 compatible. They have become lifestyle things. But what is such a thing anyway? And who has been at the cradle of that phenomenon? If we hear the Scholars talking about it then it is clear that the SUV got its own market segment in the 1980s. But the history of the species goes much further back to the time when automobiles were still young, in the 1930s. When the producers were still looking for what the market needed instead of coming up with things for which markets had to be made.

A simple basis

Back then, in The States, simple, reliable, simple vehicles were needed to be automotive on poor or non-existent road surfaces. And there was little or no mention of comfort. Things and people had to be transported. Point. The car industry was still fully learning what customers wanted and happily experimented by combining elements. Different bodies were mounted on different undercarriages of people and light freight vehicles. And to provide more sheltered space for passengers and cargo, the roof was extended up to the rear bumper. In 1923, 'Durant', one of the brands from which GM would emerge, built the first 'station wagon'.

In 1934, Chevrolet took the next step by putting the same bodywork on a truck chassis. "Good for transporting goods and quickly converting for people transport" was the sales cry for the Carryall-Suburban.

After WWII: the next generation

After the Second World War, where these cars got 4WD, their triumphal march continued side by side with the civilian Jeeps. Jeep and Land Rover were the foundation layers for the new breed. Only then no one thought of calling those vehicles 'sport utility vehicles'. But soon Jeep and Land Rover faced very serious competition from the Far East. Toyota introduced the Land Cruiser line and its success provoked a response from GM and Ford. The 4WD station wagons became more and more 'softer' and larger from pure utensils. And eventually even Mercedes-Benz entered the market and the luxury SUV had become a fact. But before that, there had already been quite a bit of headwind for the new species.

Increasingly larger, increasingly luxurious

The SUVs, growing further from their off-road ancestors, were criticized in the eighties for being unsafe. They would tip too easily in the terrain. They would crush small cars on the assembly line. The manufacturers protested that this would only happen with improper use. They presented the four-wheel drives that had grown far from their Jeep-like ancestors as cars for the public road with the option of fun off-road trips. And that the Hummer later thought of it again and that Lamborghini made a kind of Hummer DeLuxe? After all, every story has two sides.