![]() ![]() Whether you live in the city, suburbs or a small town, there’s a chance it will have at least some of what you’re looking for. Curb appeal: The advantages of the crossoverįor a model that blends elements of the SUV, sedan, station wagon, hatchback and minivan, it’s not surprising the crossover has such broad appeal. The first compact crossover, a type of CUV so popular today, is thought to be the Toyota RAV4, which arrived in America in 1995. Gear Patrol magazine credits the Willys-Overland Jeepster (introduced in 1948), the Neorion Chicago (1974) and the AMC Eagle (1979) as forerunners to this vehicle segment. Crossovers incorporate features of both SUVs and passenger cars, including station wagons and hatchbacks. The crossover is based on a car chassis with unibody design involving a single frame and body, as Branman describes. The terms “crossover,” “CUV,” and “crossover SUV” haven’t traveled into the pages of Merriam-Webster yet but these vehicles are more car-like than the truck-derived SUV. (The iconic Suburban is actually the oldest continuous automobile nameplate in the world, according to General Motors.) What is a crossover? It’s not clear-cut what was the first SUV ever built, but some of the candidates are the Willys Jeep Station Wagon, introduced in 1946, and the Chevrolet Suburban, dating from 1935. SUVs often come with all-wheel-drive capabilities and have a distinctive boxy appearance. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an SUV as “a large vehicle designed to be used on rough surfaces but that is often used on city roads or highways.” That might sound a bit like a crossover, but as Miles Branman of Digital Trends explains, the more rugged SUV is typically built with a body-on-frame design, using the chassis of a light truck, to handle rough terrain and heavier payloads. After all, the CUV came to life off the back of the SUV. If a major part of the crossover’s appeal rests on its versatility and ability to please a lot of people a lot of the time, that can also make it difficult to pin down what exactly is a crossover and what isn’t. #Crossover car drivers#“One of the fundamental drivers of the American car industry is that, all other things being equal, people will always choose the most flexibility,” he says in Vellequette’s article. This type of advantage is key in the United States, according to John Krafcik, president of. Car buyers “no longer must choose between the fuel economy and comfortable ride of a sedan and the versatility and increased visibility of a crossover or SUV,” writes Larry P. Crossovers have been stealing market share from other segments, like the traditionally dominant sedan, thanks to their versatility, and combine winning attributes of both sedans and SUVs. The remarkable rise in crossover popularity seems to lie in the vehicle being all things to all people. Both small and mid-sized cars came in at 17 percent, while it was 14 percent for pickups. ![]() ![]() While crossovers accounted for nearly a third of new auto sales last year, it was just seven percent for SUVs, according to Car and Driver. ![]() The crossover certainly appears to have established itself as the more dynamic partner to the SUV. The crossover takeover: Sedans, SUVs and trucks outpaced “Small utility vehicles might be considered boring by car-obsessive gearheads, but consumers love them and the vehicles have emerged as a major force in the industry since the start of the century, now selling at five times the rate they did in 2000,” writes Young. It’s not been an overnight trend, though, and has been described as a “crossover renaissance” by Angelo Young of International Business Times. Year-to-date figures to the end of March 2016, published by the Wall Street Journal, reveal combined SUV and crossover (CUV) sales of 1,484,781, of which 1,077,795 were crossovers. Car buyers just can’t get enough of these sleek, smooth but high-riding and practical vehicles at the moment. auto sales figures summarized by Car and Driver. The crossover, born of the sports utility vehicle (SUV), has become the dominant automobile segment with 30 percent of the new car market, according to 2015 U.S. A truck, the Ford F-150, may be the best-selling vehicle in the United States but it is the crossover that occupies the fertile middle ground in the auto market. ![]()
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