Why SUVs are here for good

COMMENT

Readers pose the question all the time: How long will the SUV craze last?

Well, we may all be driving electric cars in future – or they'll be driving us – but the chances are very strong that they will outwardly resemble today's Sports Utility Vehicle.

And why is that? Because up to this point, the SUV is arguably the pinnacle of automotive product development for the everyday driver.

In the past we've headed down what have been design and engineering cul-de-sacs, but it has taken literally decades to realise that and get back on track. You can't buy a car in a phaeton, landaulette or a brougham body style any longer. The market has spoken – and in doing so it has denounced impractical, uncomfortable and expensive automotive packages, no matter how much designers and engineers liked them at the time.

What we're seeing with the gradual demise of the most traditional passenger car body style – the sedan – is another example of consumer demand in action.

Once upon a time, the sedan was a high-riding vehicle with a wheel in each corner and enough headroom for occupants to wear a hat inside. With long-travel suspension and large, long-stroke engines, they could negotiate rough roads and steep hills. Sound familiar?

But as rural roads improved around the world and European designers focused more on speed, aerodynamics and fuel efficiency, all cars started to look sleeker, ride lower and cater more for urban drivers and nuclear families. With aerodynamic efficiency (and crash safety too, don't forget), packaging suffered: Bigger cars, smaller cabins, poorer field of vision.

The development of the hatchback, popularised by the Renault 16, prolonged the life of the family car paradigm – but mostly in the case of smaller cars rather than the Holdens and Falcons our parents used to drive.

In the background to all this, SUVs were beginning to find their own market niche. Family-car owners watched friends and neighbours head off on arduous journeys into the outback – and return to tell the tale.

Mass-market envy drove many to follow that lead and buy their own off-road machines. The appeal of these vehicles broadened as buyers realised the SUV could also tow, it had a commanding view of the track ahead (which also translated to the road) and it could transport kids and lots of the sort of junk that kids want to take with them – not just on holiday, but at weekends as well.

Increasingly, buyers chose the SUV for its family-car functionality in the suburbs as much as for the prospect of an annual trip into the wilderness. SUVs quickly came to prove their worth for roominess in a relatively compact footprint, too, if you were buying one of the smaller examples.

But what has been the greatest boon for our growing community of aging SUV buyers is the high hip point. While passenger cars have jettisoned practicality in the chase for fuel-efficient wind-cheating properties and pedestrian-friendly crash protection, the SUVs have remained easily accessible for people who no longer want to stoop to take a seat behind the wheel.

At its core, the SUV archetype offers the tailgate and load length of a hatchback or wagon, and a higher hip point for comfort. But in most other respects, the modern SUV is a return to passenger-car designs of the pre-war years. It's the best of all worlds.

And if you should feel that SUVs have a limited shelf life, because no-one wants to be driving the same sort of car as their parents do, don't dismiss the inventiveness of the automotive industry out of hand.

Maybe Mum and Dad love their RAV4, but there's nothing stopping young Emma or Ethan buying a Fiat 500X or a Jeep Renegade – if that's their counter-establishment wish.

Quirkier SUVs can run parallel to mainstream offerings across a very wide spectrum – everything from the Nissan Juke and Toyota C-HR to the Audi Q8 or the Mercedes-Benz GLE Coupe. SUVs can cover all the bases that passenger cars currently cover, even sports cars.

SUVs may not be your cup of tea, but nor are they going away anytime soon...

Picture of 1936 Rolls-Royce Phantom III Sports Saloon courtesy of Matthew Lamb/Wikimedia Commons