Re: The SUV debate

[George Graves <gmgraves@domain.elided>]

On Friday, August 30, 2002, at 02:47 AM, alfa-digest wrote:

> Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 09:55:45 +0200
> From: "John Fielding" <johnf@domain.elided>
> Subject: RE: The SUV debate
>
> Hi All,
>
> Whilst pondering on the SUV debate whilst driving from Johannesburg 
> back home to Durban -
> a distance of approx. 600km - I suddenly remembered the real origin of 
> the SUV.  Many
> years ago in the UK the Land-Rover company brought out the 
> Range-Rover, this was a BIG
> vehicle by UK standards, and was aimed at wealthy farmers and large 
> property owners to
> replace the old Land-Rover which was rather dated by then.
And never very reliable. Even when new. No wonder one of the characters 
in "The Gods Must be Crazy" called the Land-Rover that he was 
perennially working on "The Anti-Christ."



>   It had permanent 4 wheel drive
> and a 3.5L American origin Ali V8 motor (Oldsmobile I think?).
Buick Aluminum V-8. Rover bought the design from GM after they 
abandoned it (it was available in the "small Buick" called a "Skylark" 
for several years in the early sixties). The engine subsequently found 
its way into EVERYTHING in Britain. The Rover 3500 Saloon (nice car), 
various Land-Rover variants, even an MG or so, IIRC.



>   Well it caught on as a
> "cult symbol" not by the intended customers but the trendy well heeled 
> city drivers.  The
> patronage of certain members of the Royal family (Princess Anne and 
> Prince Charles to name
> a couple) who used them to attend Polo and other "horsy" events also 
> attended by
> "wanna-be's" of society, boosted the image and soon everyone who could 
> afford one was
> queuing up to buy one.
>
> The most prolific area in trendy London where these could be seen 
> parked outside exclusive
> clothes shops, coffee shops and expensive restaurants was Sloane 
> Square.  Hence the term
> was coined of "Sloane Rangers" to donate someone with more money than 
> sense who wished to
> be seen driving an expensive vehicle, completely unsuited for the road 
> conditions existing
> in inner London, as a statement "Look I have made it!"  Very soon 
> after you could buy
> spray-on mud in an aerosol to coat the underside to make it looked 
> like you had been
> off-road.  I wonder if the American origin is similar?
Not really. In our usual, cynical, ubber-Capitalist fashion, our SUV 
'craze' was born out of the auto industry's desire for a high-profit 
cash-cow to replace the huge American sedan. It was the late Seventies, 
the the two gasoline shortages were fresh under our belt and the 
government, with their usual too-late-with-either-too 
much-or-too-little attitude rushed to give us exactly what we 'needed': 
more laws. They imposed stringent safety and fuel economy targets for 
the auto industry, thereby essentially killing-off the quintessential 
block-long American sedan. The scale of economics in car building is 
that it cost almost as much to build a small car as it does to build a 
big one. The operations in putting these cars together are the same, 
big or small and the extra steel and other materials required for the 
bigger car turn out to be peanuts compared to labor costs. 
Unfortunately, at the time, they couldn't sell the small car for as 
much as they could sell the big sedans (which is why Detroit was always 
so reluctant to build small cars) Then somebody at Chrysler, I believe, 
had an epiphany. These safety and gasoline milage laws only pertain to 
passenger CARS, not trucks. All Detroit had to do was take a truck 
chassis and put bodies on them that could haul people like a car, and 
these vehicles would be exempt from all the new laws. Hence, first the 
minivan, and then the SUV were born. All Detroit had to do was turn-up 
the advertising and convince Americans that they WANT these clunkers. 
This was something that the American car industry was good at and had 
done many times before (just what the hell is a 'personal luxury car' 
anyway). The payoff is that trucks are cheap to make and the falderal 
that 'upscales' them such as leather seats, thick carpets and stereo 
systems are very inexpensive to implement, but can run the price of the 
vehicle up to a nice, comfortable profit margin. The proof of the 
pudding is in the eating, as they say, and it is a fact that the Ford 
assembly plant that makes Explorers, Expeditions, and Lincoln 
Navigators has been rated the worlds most profitable production 
facility for 6 years running.
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