Extreme Optimism

[ranger58sb]

I always thought the International Scout 80 series from 1960 as the original SUV. Which drew at least some of its inspiration from the Willys Overland Jeepster of the late '40's early '50's.

I think the Chevy Suburban and the Dodge Power Wagon both pre-date those. Don't remember when Sub/PW added 4WD. I've seen a '30s (I think) Suburban with three rows of seats. Never saw a Power Wagon with side windows, though, and it was likely more often sold as a truck (or ambulance).

I'd agree the Scout seems to start a major U.S. path of utility vehicles that "don't look like a Jeep" and progressed with more car-like interiors and amenities. Early Bronco, Blazer, etc. followed...

Nowadays, another distinction is about the drive systems: 4WD (with and without lockers, etc.) versus AWD versus many of the lower price SUVs sold with only 2WD (even when AWD is optional).

-Chris

 

[jimbob]

Pontoon boats are the preferred boat of those in " THE REDNECK YACHT CLUB " where a good time can be had by all

 

[Nomad Willy]

No .....

The original SUV was the AMC Eagle.

And the two things that made it a SUV were 4wd and "mom going to the store shopping" level of comfort. The PU truck things were not SUVs. I'm not sure how exactly it fits in but low overall length definitely fits in too. Quite a few years ago one of my niece's was raving about some Ford Bronco. I told her it's just another big V8 Detroit thing like my old Buicks. She thought and looked up for about 3 seconds and said "well at least it's short".

 

[dhmeissner]

1938

GAZ-61 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[ranger58sb]

No .....

The original SUV was the AMC Eagle.

And the two things that made it a SUV were 4wd and "mom going to the store shopping" level of comfort. The PU truck things were not SUVs.

I should have remembered to include the older Willys Jeep station wagons from back in the late '40s, much taller than subsequent GM/Ford/Dodge/etc. "station wagons." Think it maybe evolved into the old boxy Cherokee or Laredo or some such name...

Seems to me IH Scout started one path, followed by the original Ford Bronco on that same general plan. Then Chevy brought out the K5 Blazer from almost a whole different path, I think built on a short-box half-ton pick-up frame, whereas the Suburban had always been on the regular box pick-up frame (I think). Then the Bronco grew to become a Ford version of the K5 and Dodge made one, etc.

Yes, there was a distinction, much to do with ground clearance and angle of attack and angle of departure and so forth. Even width was a factor, in places like a Colorado "Jeep" trail -- where no kidding sometimes anything wider isn't getting through without a chain saw. (Got our truck stuck on a snowy pass once, literally between a rock and a hard place, because we were both too long and too wide.) Much of the market was about off-roading at best ("sport"), or at least maintaining traction on crummy roads and/or in crummy weather. We had a Jeepster, but I don't remember it being anything other than a 2WD open "Jeep"-like thing, not about the off-road market at all.

The name "SUV" hadn't been invented yet, and I don't think that started appearing until the follow-on crop of smaller truck-based things (e.g., the later little Blazer) came out followed by the crop of car-based "cross-overs" that work OK for going to the Dairy Queen in most weather.

The AMC Eagle was actually pretty good at that... and with a lift kit, usually didn't do too badly on crummy roads. Given AMC's lineage to Kaiser-Willys, maybe the older "station wagon" led to their Eagle concept.



Anyway, now seems to me many of the few remaining truck-based SUVs are more about visibility, and internal space... without much emphasis on traction or certainly not off-roading.

-Chris

 

[Nomad Willy]

Great post Ranger,
I thought about the Suburban 5 min after I posted but being on a PU frame as you point it's really not what we think of as an SUV. The SUV is a vehicle that a woman would go out to lunch in dressed in slacks and would be inclined to park "in front". She wouldn't feel or look like she was driving hubby's hunting rig.
There were some forerunners of course but the vehicle that put the SUV in the middle of the map was undoubtably the Ford Explorer. If the SUV has a sexist slant it appears to be feminie.

I declared the AMC Eagle to be the first as there was an article on Yahoo that claimed it so.

 

[River Cruiser]

Belongs to John B who owns the marina, Northern Lights my boat is behind it.

 

[FF]

Pontoon boats are the preferred boat of those in " THE REDNECK YACHT CLUB " where a good time can be had by all.

Perhaps where you are , but here in SW Florida the local (HUGE!) RYC has many acres of mud and races all sorts of mud boggers , from modified jeeps/trucks to full custom build 15 ft tall swamp buggies.

 

[MrJim]

I have never set foot on a pontoon boat but have seen lots of them out on the lakes and bays. They do seem like a nice way to be able to get family and friends out on the water.

I've only been on one on the showroom floor. I can see the appeal. All the comforts of your living room on the lake/river. I've been trying to talk my 83 year old father into getting one; he lives on the river in So. MD.

That said, I don't care how much the companies jazz them up, they are one of the ugliest things you'll see on the water. The only thing uglier that I've seen was a dead, bloated alligator floating in a lake that I used to ski on. But still, I'd own one...

 

[dhmeissner]

My dad bought one before he passed. He and my mom loved to fish, and my mom couldn't board a regular boat any longer. They loved it and had a blast in the time they had left.

 

[Tony B]

......You signature
"I was born in the sign of water
And it's there that I feel my best
The albatross and the whales
They are my brothers".....

If you have a great affinity to the Albatross and the Whale, I can give you both - all in one package. PM me and I will send you my X's phone number.

 

[CPseudonym]

Wife and I have been aboard several of these party barges at shows and showrooms. We've seriously considered buying one and using it seasonally. Our boat is used in protected water as a glorified day boat over 80% of the time anyway.

 

[Carolena]

There is a time share type boat club near our marina, and of all the boats, I've been told the pontoons are the most used. Great for a fun day on the water, but I would not want to take one very far out of the no wake zone. I've seen them getting bashed all over the place right were the no wake zone starts (it is a very busy spot in summer). They are also able to be beached, which is something we won't do intentionally on our boat. For the price, they do serve a purpose.

 

[ranger58sb]

There were some forerunners of course but the vehicle that put the SUV in the middle of the map was undoubtably the Ford Explorer.

Yep, agree... that was the name I was trying to think of when I said the little (not K5) Blazer, too.

Can't remember when I first heard the SUV moniker...

Sorta like "crossovers" -- that I've only just recently come to understand is a category. Folks have been talking about 'em for a while, but I was a little slow on figuring out the interpretation of what one might actually be.

So maybe that means a pontoon boat is either a floating SUV or a floating crossover.



-Chris

 

[psneeld]

Whether you believe it or not...pontoon boats are pretty seaworthy as the shed water better than most. And for protected waters offer a great flexibility at the right price point.


On the East Coast...many party boat captains have traded their 50-70 foot boats in for a 40-50 foot back bay pontoon family fisherman and are in the black again.


Bashing pontoon boats is like bashing Bayliners...the sport of the ignorant.

 

[BruceK]

I get a kick out of following 4WDs/SUVs over bumps, road humps, small gutters, etc. My Peugeot 508GT has seriously low profile 19" tyres but can easily tackle them. The SUVs crawl over them, as slow as possible, with great caution. So tempted to call out the window "It`s a 4WD, it`s designed to jump logs, gutters, boulders,deep ruts, come on, get on with it!"

 

[markpierce]

In the mid-eighties, purchased a Jeep 4-by-4 Scrambler and then bought a semi-custom fiberglass top covering cab and pick-up bed as well as bench seat so to fit four. Think I was ahead of the times. Since then have purchased two SUVs: Ford 4-by-4 Explorer [2000] and then all-wheel-drive Edge [2014]. Consider them very useful vehicles.

 

[Marin]

The SUVs crawl over them, as slow as possible, with great caution. So tempted to call out the window "It`s a 4WD, it`s designed to jump logs, gutters, boulders,deep ruts, come on, get on with it!"

I was taught to drive off-road by the foreman of the ranch in the Colorado Rockies I worked on for a couple of summers as a teenager. His name was Harry Warham, and at the time I'm guessing he was in his 60s. He'd worked huge irrigation and water system construction projects all over Colorado as a heavy equipment operator.

He had a Willy's pickup with what he called a mountain gearbox in it. Geared very low, the truck could idle along in gear slower than the person walking beside it.

There were a lot of places on the ranch that required 4wd low range and skillful driving to get to--- the gravel pit, the garbage dump, and some of the higher horse and cattle pastures. I had zero 4wd driving experience the first summer I showed up for work there, so Harry took it on himself to teach me.

He had a lot of specific techniques for specific situations, but he only had two absolute rules. One was to always go down a hill in the same gear you used to go up it. The other was to just let the vehicle idle along and crawl over the humps and bumps and walk through the ruts and gullies basically on its own.

He had two reasons for the second rule. One was I'd never scare the horses and cattle and wildlife by zooming and booming and roaring about. The other was that I'd never break anything on the vehicle.

I took both rules to heart and always followed them once I had my own 4wd (Land Rover Series III-88). I've taken that vehicle on some very tough roads in the mountains on Oahu in Hawaii (where I lived) and in the Yukon Territories and later in the Cascade Mountains after moving here.

Following Harry's two rules, I've almost always gotten through whatever we were trying to get through, and I've never broken anything on the vehicle in the process. Years later, when I started using a Range Rover for these kinds of trips and moose hunting in the interior of BC, I applied the same rules with the same results.

So I'm one you'd be tempted to yell out the window at if you were behind me.

 

[Nomad Willy]

I see no reason to leave the road or pay for the silly vehicles that open the door for that. No needs or desires there.

Nor am I interested in 4wd. With one exception. I have a 19' FG OB boat that is trailer launched and I'd like to have good options at unimproved launch sites retrieving the boat at low tide on the beach. Haha but I've never actually done that so my "need" is somewhat in question. We used 4wd 3 or 4 times in Alaska .. the suburban.

It's my opinion most 4wd vehicles are totally unneeded. Ther're bought just to be vogue. To pander to some kind of image requirement. Baugh humbug from this old man.

However after the terrible weather on the east coast more 4wd vehicles will probably be justifiably be bought.

 

[Marin]

It's my opinion most 4wd vehicles are totally unneeded. Ther're bought just to be vogue. To pander to some kind of image requirement..

When you need 4wd, you need it. I certainly don't need it driving around the Puget Sound area. But I most definitely do need it driving disused logging trails in BC on hunting trips. Also need it sometimes launching our trailer boat. Or when it snows.

(It used to snow in the Puget Sound area fairly substantially--- in my floatplane instructional book I have a photo I took in the early 1980s of Kenmore Air Harbor chopping a hundred-yard channel through the ice at the north end of Lake Washington to get their planes out to open water to take off. This used to be a regular occurance. Not anymore.)

Today the changing climate has rendered meaningful snow a thing of the past in the Puget Sound area.

But to your point, Eric, back in, I believe the mid-1990s Land Rover conducted a two year, worldwide study to determine how the buyers of 4wd vehicles-- all makes--- used them. And what they found was that about 98% of the buyers never take them off the pavement. Never.

So... that totally changed the mindset at Land Rover and they shifted their focus away from 4wd and off-road capabilities and onto on-road performance and handling,a nd comfort with vehicles like the Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, and Discovery and now the Evoque. I'm sure the same thing occured at all the other SUV makers.

There is still a comparatively small market for a capable off-road 4wd, but it's reflected in only a handful of vehicles today. Jeep still makes the Wrangler, Land Rover until this year continued to make the Defender, and so on. You can get a pickup that's set up properly for off-road or at least off-pavement use if you're willing to pay for it.

But for the most part, I believe you're correct. 4wd SUVs are little more these days than gussied up cars. Even the Hummer was built on a Tahoe chassis. (I don't know what the Chinese are doing with it these days.)

 

[Northern Spy]

When I hear "pontoon boat"...

I can't help but think of the Agnes D...

[youtube]LxiLb7lgMlc[/youtube]

 

[BruceK]

The main use of a 4WD here is to drive the children to and from school. Except when there is a leaf or 2 on the house driveway, which prevents using it.

 

[Art]

Early 1970's I had 4WD plow truck for driveways in Maine.


Mid 70's I plowed roads in Denver.


Latter 70's and early 80's I had two plow trucks in upper Sierra Nevada Mountains.


Currently we have 4 WD Explorer for traveling to our Tolly and launching our tow behind runabout.


I also have hot-rod tuned headers 325 hp 350 engine, locker posi-traction front and rear ends, mechanical-lockout/in front hubs, 4 spd w/ full range grared transfer box for 8 available gears - 1 ton 4WD full sized fleetside classic 1985 Chevy Silverado PU with power everything custom interior and welded center frame off-road skid plates as well as tow apparatus front and rear. 33-16-16.5 deep ply M&S tires.


I know 4WD, years practice professionally as well as for private purposes.


Two Prime Points


1. Never use 4WD until necessary, and;
2. When you do... whisper it through its maneuvers.

 

[Nomad Willy]

Art that's exactly what I do. Re 4wd.

However we use the 4wd Suburban mostly as a truck pulling our 14' utility trailer. Frequently I drive it to prevent it from sitting too much.

Related to you're #1 is;
Never use the clutch till it's needed.

 

[ranger58sb]

Maybe the "U" in SUV descends from the Aussie ""Utes"?

Four wheel drive doesn't magically create four wheel stop.

Slow in 4WD is good. Slower is usually better. Off-road, slowest is often safest.

Slow and generally in lower gears downhill is also good.

Breaking stuff is bad.

Super slow over speed bumps, on the other hand, suggests the vehicle is being used by that 98%, and they're afraid to knock the ice cream off the cone they just bought.

I needed 4WD to get back up our (sloped) driveway this afternoon. After skating down it when I left, earlier this morning. Pretty much solid ice under the snow layer...

-Chris

 

[Northern Spy]

Pretty sure the term sport utility was coined by Crosley just after WWII. It was a convertible wagon with removable sides.

Crosley built a bunch of semi-cool, semi-quirky vehicles before they went under. Also invented the storage in the door refrigerator.

 

[ranger58sb]

Pretty sure the term sport utility was coined by Crosley just after WWII. It was a convertible wagon with removable sides.

Crosley built a bunch of semi-cool, semi-quirky vehicles before they went under. Also invented the storage in the door refrigerator.

Ah, very interesting. I see that, linked here Crosley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -- but not here Sport utility vehicle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia .

The author(s) of the second article must be young folks.

I remember seeing Crosley autos when I was young, and we had a Crosley refrigerator.... but I didn't know much about the cars at the time...

-Chris

 

[BruceK]

Never knew Crosley made cars, just fridges. The 1951 sports car shown on Wikipedia might have inspired the front of the Mk1 Austin Healey ("bug eye") Sprite.

 

[BandB]

Wifey B: I feel like I just walked into history class. Ancient history....:lol:

 

[ranger58sb]

Just goes to show there are boaters here who are older than "older."

I suspect the most difficult part for many of us here is actually remember some of this stuff. I know I sometimes can't remember what I ate for breakfast...



-Chris