What Most Drivers Get Wrong About SUVs

For years, they’ve been crowding our streets and filling our driveways. Your neighbors likely have one. Someone within your family probably does as well. Heck, there’s even a high chance that you do, too.

Ah, yes: the “sport-utility vehicle,” otherwise known as the SUV. It’s only the hottest thing since sliced bread, coming in nearly every size and shape and color for years and years.

But what exactly is an SUV, and how do you define one? Turns out, it’s kind of complicated.

What is an SUV, exactly?

You can get halfway there if you simply break the term down to its simplest definitions: “sport,” or relating or pertaining to sporting activities; “utility,” being capable of practical use; and, well, “vehicle” is self-explanatory.

But there’s a little more to it than that. In fact, there’s a lot more.

Photo by Cam Oden for Gear Patrol

Most drivers today would probably describe an SUV is as a vehicle higher than other cars. It hauls a lot of people and a lot of stuff, and it’s versatile enough to travel where most other paved-surface-going vehicles would run for their garages.

While that’s generally true, there are other types of vehicles that fit that description and there are even different types of SUVs, as well. So what precisely distinguishes a SUV from other types of vehicles?

Check the boxes

In the world of automotive taxonomy and within the kingdom of passenger vehicles, cars are classified by the configuration of their body.

For instance, SUVs are “two-box” designs, wherein there are two compartmentalized sections: one for the powertrain and one for the passenger cell. Wagons and hatchbacks are also considered two-box designs.

Alternatively, sedans, coupes, convertibles and even pickup trucks are “three-box” designs, whereby the vehicle is sectioned for the powertrain, the passenger cell, and the trunk. Vans are considered “one-box.”

SUVs also combine the two-box design with the features of an off-road vehicle, which means increased ride height for more ground clearance and typically some sort of four-wheel-drive powertrain, allowing it to traverse surfaces that aren’t paved.

Where did SUVs come from?

The origin of the SUV can’t be pinpointed to one event in time and place. As the “horseless carriage” became more accessible to the public and automakers all over the globe continued innovating throughout the first half of the 20th century, the SUV in the contemporary sense came to fruition as a culmination of multiple shared ideas. But the first use of the term, “SUV” or “sport utility vehicle” is often a topic of constant debate, as is its genesis.

The invention of four-wheel drive is from the late 1800s. But the idea of a passenger vehicle with four-wheel drive didn’t come together until the 1930s, when automakers around the world began toying with their own experiments under the influence of military projects.

Examples include cars like the German 1936 Opel Geländesportswagen; the 1941 Volkswagen Kommandeurswagen, which was essentially a four-wheel-drive Beetle prototype; the Russian 1938 GAZ-6; and the Japanese Kurogane Type 95 from 1936.

It wasn’t until the post-war era that the modern sports-utility vehicle came to fruition with examples like the Willys Jeep Station Wagon, which received optional four-wheel drive in 1949. Chevrolet followed with the Suburban in 1955, and then the International Harvester Travelall, the world’s supposed first “full-size SUV,” in 1956.

The fast lane to today

The birth of the SUV in its most popular form as it is today as you find it in showrooms in all types of flavors is often credited to the likes of the “XJ” Jeep Cherokee in 1984 and arguably the AMG Eagle before it in 1979, the first modern “crossover SUV.”

Jeep supposedly first used such wording when advertising its full-size “SJ” Jeep Cherokee in 1974. But furthermore, the actual concept of an all-terrain multi-purpose passenger vehicle dates back to the 1930s with panel wagons and “carryalls.”

Chevrolet

More car than truck

In the beginning, SUVs were truck-based, featuring similar two-part constructions consisting of a main ladder frame with a body mounted on top and solid axles suspended by leaf springs.

But because of this very simplistic design, early truck-based SUVs developed a reputation for being harsh and difficult to drive, inefficient and uncomfortable.

While some full-size SUVs today still feature these two-part body-on-frame constructions, they have since evolved to incorporate more car-like features, refining their driving experience, and making them far easier to live with on an everyday basis. Many include the use of a single unibody or hybrid frame, fully-independent suspension, and all-wheel drive in lieu of old-school four-wheel-drive.

Through this evolution, SUVs have not only become popular over the years but it eventually paved the way for the unrelenting proliferation of the crossover SUV.

While the definition of a crossover is even more subjective than that of a traditional sport-utility vehicle, generally speaking, they’re designed using unibody chassis (often ones based on those used by sedans) and offer simpler AWD systems — or even front-wheel-drive in 2WD versions, versus the rear-wheel-drive of 2WD old-school SUVs. This results in a vehicle that looks and drives more like a car than traditional truck-based SUVs, making it friendlier and more approachable.

Photo by Cam Oden for Gear Patrol

Indeed, because they’re so approachable, crossovers far outnumber the number of traditional body-on-frame SUVs, let alone sedans, on the road. As of late, automakers have perfected the recipe for the crossover, combining the versatile practicality of a traditional SUV, with the easy-to-live-with everyday benefits of a sedan.

Whether SUVs or even crossovers are for your or not is entire subjective. But spend time in one and it’s easy to see and realize why they’ve become so popular.

What’s not to like about being able to comfortably haul yourself, friends or family — not to mention all their things — in a safe and efficient manner?

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