Cool film.
My thanks to Tomas for digging that up.

 

That pretty much covers it. That and the fact that people like to imagine they are going to ford streams and drive up glaciers in their Ford Explorer with less ground clearance than an Subaru Forester. They are sort of romanticized and give people the idea they are safer inside them.

I had an SUV many years ago, back in the 1980s when most people who bought them were still actually leaving paved ground with them. Mine was a Toyota Landcruiser (FJ62) a real machine with solid axles and leaf springs and a pneumatic locking diff and I used it for what it was designed for, but that was then and this is now and today I don't need that capability and I'm disgusted by the idea of SUV's as fashion accessories so I don't drive one.

 

That was EXCELLENT.

So true....so true.

They nailed all of the stereotypes right on the head. Especially the self-centered rich b*tch with her kid in the SUV. Right on the money. Egotistical pieces of sh*t.

 

Agreed. I think that people like the perception that they can do anything they want with their vehicle, i.e. no limits. In general, I think that most SUVs spend their years stuck in traffic like everyone else. I don't hate SUVs. I just think that they are supreme overkill for most of the jobs they end up doing.

IMHO, it was the lack of real alternatives (i.e. euro-style space wagons) to SUVs that helped to stimulate their tremendous growth during the 90's. Add to that low fuel prices and few government emissions regulations (most SUVs at that time were truck-based) and its easy to see why many people saw them as the best choice.

What else could haul that many people and so much stuff? The family station wagon was dying off and minivans were considered utilitarian or unattractive by some.

In this decade I have enjoyed the return of the hatchback and wagon; car-based SUV, "crossover" vehicle, "minicar", Sport Utility Wagon, etc.
I don't care what you call 'em, it's great that we can choose from good looking vehicles in all sizes, shapes, and configurations.

If I had a big family, I might have bought an xB, Subaru Outback, or even a Mazda5 (even though I don't care for the minivan style sliding doors, ugh). I got an xA because I usually drive alone, but sometimes need to haul people or stuff (but usually never at the same time).

Whoa. Much longer post than I intended. Oh well. Hope nobody fell asleep.

 

dont you remember as a kid having to sit in the back seat of a car with your legs all scrunched up not being able to breathe fighting with your brother or sister for room.....yea if i had to deal with that like my parents did i'd buy an suv too

 

 

contrary to logic, sport-utility vehicles -- and the newly created niche of crossover-utility vehicles, will continue to remain in the market despite rising fuel costs. one main reason is the great accelerated tax credit businesses can redeem with the purchase of a vehicle with a GVWR of over 6000 lbs that is used at least 51% for business use. when a business is able to see a tax credit of around $32,000 in the first year, it makes for an attractive purchase (based on a $60k vehicle).
plus, often times fuel and maintenance are declared as business expense...

 

Or do what my wife and I did. Buy a VW bus. Six blissful feet between us and the children, along with enough room to take cribs, ice chests, books, and a giant toybox along on the trip. As a bonus, we got a cool classic vehicle to drive around!

Oddly enough, it turned out that our children get along with each other just fine, so we do a lot of travelling in the Scion these days.

 

Where did it originate from?

Well, SUV's have been around for ages, gaining popularity from the military in WWI and WWII as JEEPS. Often times, war veterans would return and buy them for use as Civilians. . . and all in all they made GREAT off road vehicles (except for the roll over thing).

They never exactly became mainstream. You would see people in remote locations with SUV's as they served a purpose. But they weren't really huge in the cities.

It wasn't until the REAL (for economists) price of gasoline dropped to the same prices as the 70's did SUV's become mainstream. Realizing a $1 today is worth much less than a $1 in the 70's, gas prices were rediculously cheap in the 90's. Back in the 60's/70's, you could get a steak dinner for about a a buck, so gas wasn't THAT cheap.

With gas oozing out our pores, there was room for inefficiency. I'd have to say that the trend began with die hard ski-ers and snowboarders, as well as yuppie families heading to their time-share cabins, in northern California. Having 4WD meant not needing chains in most cases. Furthermore, with room for gear and the kids, SUV's became a very fashionable and luxurious option. I'd say that the 90's was the beginning of the feminization of men, so sports cars (without room for the family) was a no-no. But then the trend spread away from people who actually had a use for 4WD.

SUV's became fashionable just to have. . . all the celebrities and bling bling retards wanted and drove them. And then the cities flourished with SUV's. . .

. . . and then the gas price adjusted to its natural equilibrium. . . YES, if you look at the historical REAL price average, it's exactly where it should be. Can we say market correction?

 

We had an all-trac Previa which suited us just fine. 4WD, and more cargo room than an SUV, with all the seats folded/removed. Comfortable seating for 7, with tons of head room, and real seats in the third row. There was even enough room for my dad to kick my butt when I got too rowdy. I can't say the same for my Uncle's family in their 3 row Highlander. Those kids need a beating. Even a Durango's third row is is tight. And even an ML500 isn't as comfortable as an xB. . . which should tell you something about the roominess issue.

I think the fact that a majority of Americans are overweight, and a huge number are obese, has a huge factor in why SUV's became popular. You KNOW you need that tow rating to haul Fat Aunt Susan around.

SUV's are great though, if you really do use them for what they are intended for.

 

ummm. the majority of these are drive by soccer moms. how is that anywhere near "business" ?

 

A steak dinner, even a cheap one, cost way more than a buck during the '60s! Four or five is more like it. To get the $1 steak dinner you have to go back three more decades.

Here is a graph of gasoline prices adjusted for inflation. There hasn't been much inflation in the last few years, so the prices can be considered to be in current dollars:

 

Well, yes and no. . . my father enjoyed military discounts, and I have receipts that date back. . . and they weren't the greatest steaks either. Man, back in 2000 I could get a 10oz sirloin for $3.99 in Las Vegas. But steaks aren't what I'm arguing.

That chart is dead on, like I said. . . gas was underpriced from 1990-2000, considering that gas consumption was growing exponentially world wide. The reason we see prices decline from 1918 to 1970 have to do with Economies of Scale. You have to realize that the auto industry as it is now has only really existed for some 50 odd years. But almost every qualified economist (and professor) I've every talked to unanimously agree that the price hike is more of a correction than anything else, especially since there is less oil being discovered than there are additional consumers. The 90's were a glitch in time. . . and so are SUV's

 

Las Vegas isn't a great example, food price wise. There is an ulterior motive behind those $4 steak dinners!

However, a look back shows that it wasn't always that way. The El Rancho Vegas charged $5 for a New York or a Filet Mignon in the 1940s:
http://gaming.unlv.edu/ElRanchoVegas...s/ERVmenu1.jpg

To get to a sub-$1 steak, you need to go back to the 1920s:
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/cic/imag...238_116a_k.jpg

Anyway, back to the chart. Remembering that the motorcar didn't really come into mass use until the 1920s, it isn't surprising that fuel was in the $3 range (adjusted for inflation) before that date, In the '30s and '40s, cars were still luxury items so fuel was also at luxury ($2.50) levels. After WWII, cars made the transition from luxury to necessity, fuel usage soared, the the price came down to a reasonable consumer level. Except for the oil "crisis" of the '70s, where OPEC and the oil companies mainipulated prices the price has remained between $1.50 and $2.00 a gallon (in constatant dollars) since WWII.

Of course, the chart doesn't show the rapid run-up of fuel prices in 2004/2005. I think that the fullness of time will show this increase to be the same sort of market manipulation that was shown to be the case in the '70s.

There was no real reason to raise prices, but there were plenty of excuses. "The Gulf War", "Hurricaine Katrina", "President Bush Sneezed" all resulted in massive increases in price at the pump, while at the same time the oil companies reaped record profits.

As soon as Congress called the oil company bigwigs in to explain how they can be making record profits at the same time that they are supposedly facing all manners of hardship something magically changed and oil prices started to drop rapidly. I think that the magical thing was when a couple of the politicos mentioned the words "Windfall Profits Tax"!

 

Good point. I forgot to mention that. But yes, they've already climbed back down towards equilibrium. There was a lot of artificial inflation in the past year, but it would have SLOWLY climbed down to equilibrium (since that is where they are most profitable in the long run, as prices spikes are only profitable in the short run). However Congress did help speed up that process.