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Why Americans Love SUVs
“The whole world is angry at America for driving SUVs. Why do we Americans love these monstrous and threatening devices? Barging through traffic in a sport utility vehicle is hardly sporting. The utility of the things is open to question. And they are vehicles mainly in the sense that the Alaska pipeline is a vehicle for oil — most of this pipeline’s capacity being needed to keep on Cadillac Escalade topped up.” — P.J. O’Rourke, Driving Like Crazy, 2009
So begins P.J. O’Rourke’s defense of SUVs, from a piece first published in the London Times, and later reprinted in Driving Like Crazy. The essay is a short one, but full of O’Rourke’s typical wit.
We have big families, and we’re big people. How big I needn’t tell you who are annually trampled in Trafalgar Square and butted across Hyde Park by herds of Guernsey-sized American tourists. Michelle Obama, in fact, is considered the Twiggy of America. Even our wispy left-wing intellectual types are … you’ve seen Michael Moore.
…
America is a practical nation. SUVs provide practical solutions to the problems Americans face. Americans have a lot of baggage — backpacks, fanny packs, laptops, beer coolers, blame for everything that’s wrong in the world. Try armor-plating your Mercedes Smart Car.
I’m an American, and I drive an SUV. I am not ashamed.
Published in Humor
We love them, in part, because CAFE standards thwarted the affair between us and station wagons –
Round here, the SUV crossovers grow ever more station-wagonesque.
The one and only time that I watched that television show “Top Gear,” they had some poncy little Brit fluttering around a Ford F-150 having an attack of the vapors because “no one needs a truck this big.”
Wrong, Rupert. You don’t need a truck that big — not to lug a box of tea and a tin of biscuits home over those merry little goat paths that you call roads.
If you don’t want a big vehicle, don’t buy a big vehicle. If my buying a big vehicle is causing you psychic pain, I advise you to try a little cheese with that whine.
There are some amusing oddities in the history of light trucks too. The catalytic converter, mandatory since the 1975 model year, was not initially required for trucks. The early cat’s were horribly constricting on exhaust (and thus horsepower), and after 1975, if you still needed or wanted a big motor with plenty of grunt, then light trucks were your go-to.
So while the muscle-car died with CAFE standards and gas prices, it kept going, in a way, for a few more years, with such quirky beasts as this:
https://blog.dodge.com/heritage/1978-dodge-lil-red-express-truck/
You ought to watch The Grand Tour then. Clarkson basically admits he completely misunderstood big trucks.
For the environmentally conscientious American:
Of course we need a truck that big. How else are we going to haul all our guns, ammo and assorted hunting, shooting, camping gear?
The station wagon was the ideal for families just as the convertible was the ideal for young men about the rime I was one. I had a station wagon for the family and a 1968 red Mustang convertible for myself. I paid $3050 for the convertible and $4800 for the wagon. The humorless Jimmy Carter and his equally humorless DOT Secretaries, Adams and Goldschmidt, decreed that station wagons had to go and also convertibles were too dangerous. 50 years later, those cars are ten times the price.
When we upgraded to 3 kids we realized we needed a bigger vehicle to get around. 4 and 5 just solidified that. But when we looked at minivans the problem I found with those is the lack of power. I like to be able to safely make left turns and to be able to pass slow drivers on hills during the short distance of passing lanes and even the Odyssey lacked sufficient guts. So I’ll take my hemi powered, 7 seat Durango that we were able to buy from friends for cash. I consider power to be a necessary safety feature.
Also, I find this song funny:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P0NfaKiPIMc
CAFE standards didn’t apply to light trucks either, where the boundary between passenger car and light truck was something like 6500 lbs. Since that definition applied to a number of tax breaks for business vehicle purchases, it’s hardly surprising that light trucks became extraordinarily popular.
I’m driving my fourth Suburban, and I feel no guilt what-so-ever.
They don’t have tractor pulls in Ol’ Blighty either, I’ll betcha.
This reminds me of my uncle. In the sixties, he was starting his own business and had a great credit rating, but at one point – a cash flow problem. Some dealership was offering $500 or $600 cash back when you bought one of their convertibles with their financing. He bought the car and fed the family with the rebate until his cash flow improved. And then he had a convertible!
CAFE standards are bad and counter-productive. I’d much prefer to accomplish the environmental and national-security objectives with net-zero gas taxes rather than micromanagement of the market. Of course, that wouldn’t advance the leftist goal of nationalizing all our industry.
Our new SUV gets pretty good gas mileage, so I’m OK with it. When gas prices get to $7 or $8/gallon like I pay in Ireland when I fill up our daughter’s car, I’d probably want something smaller.
Tell me more.
I resemble that remark.
This conversation is part of our Quote of the Day Series. If you have a quotation that might give us a laugh, make us think, spark a great discussion, or all three, our schedule and sign-up sheet for December is here. Wouldn’t you like to grab a good date before they’re all taken?
I heard that he got bounced from the old show for being politically incorrect in a serial fashion.
Maybe I misjudged him.
I’ve been advocating this for 20 years or more, and last year one was actually put on the ballot in Washington State. The idea is to raise taxes on gas in exchange for decreasing other taxes, so we don’t give the government more money. Many of us have always assumed that the left doesn’t really want a carbon tax for environmental reasons; they want it so they can grow the government. Well, this was put to test in Washington State last year, with Initiative 732. It was a left group that proposed it. Well, it turns out that a lot of environmentalist types decided they didn’t want it if it meant tax cuts elsewhere. They decided that climate change wasn’t so important, after all. Proof positive that our suspicions have been correct. Here is one article about it that I found by googling just now: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/carbon-tax-initiative-backers-press-campaign-despite-green-opposition/.
Did you try the Kia Sedona? I have a 2008 with a 3.8 litre 6. I wouldn’t take you on at a stop light, but it has ample pep and power. It burns rubber if I am not careful – a little embarrassing, like, what’s this guy trying to prove? Vastly superior to the American minivans, priced nicely below the Hondas and Toyotas.
No, he punched one of the producers or something.
Which contributed to a spectacular first 5(ish) minutes of the first episode of The Grand Tour.
I drove a Chevy Suburban when I was a mother with children living at home because it was my dream car. I had five children. If we went anywhere–Scouts, church, vacation—it also involved taking a friend or two. Or possibly sports equipment, or luggage, or even just groceries!! I LOVED that vehicle!
I realize now that I violated so many Earth First rules:
Right now, with just the two of us: Chevy Silverado pick-up with a back seat (grandchildren need to sit somewhere.) We can tow things, we can haul things, we won’t get too hurt if some idiot crashes into us. It’s really comfy to travel in when we go see the children. I’ll never give up my big vehicles.
I had a friend (recently deceased) who called SUVs ‘Sport Assault Vehicles.’
I think of that whenever one of the SUVs impairs my vision, because I canno see around it. Sometimes very dangerous.
Then get one.
Yes, whenever I drive the little cars I remember how hard it is to see, even around other little cars. I love my SUV so that can see.
I spent a good portion of my childhood in one of these:
That’s why I am a sedan man now:
I still miss my 15-passenger van we bought sometime after baby #4 was born. I was the queen of carpools; we drove it for thousands of miles on roadtrips – the kids could barely see each other and it solved the “get on your own side” bickering. Chastising someone was a challenge, but one of my proudest moments was flinging a shoe all the way to the back seat and landing a blow on son #1, who deserved it, I promise.
The mileage was pathetic and I was confronted more than once how how “green” I wasn’t. But … but … but … I once drove it to a R event in Hollywood (usually I would drive my husband’s Honda). I rushed out as soon as the speaker was done and handed my ticket to the valet. Kelsey Grammer, Jon Voight and Gary Sinese soon joined the line, right behind me.
When the valet arrived with the green beast I turned to all three of them and said, “Well, with you guys I don’t have to apologize for the gas mileage, but I sure wish I had washed it.”
We are truckless at the moment and boy do we miss having something big. My husband drove an F150 for years; he upgraded to a Taurus and I drove the truck around town, sharing it with son #3.
Poor kid fell asleep at the wheel at 6:00 am after pulling an all nighter at an event (he worked for my son in law doing staging and lighting). He drifted into several parked cars – the people in the apartment building nearby thought a bomb had been dropped. He walked away with literally one scratch on his arm.
The cops and the firemen all agreed the truck probably saved his life.
It’s not the London Times. It’s The Times in London.
Punched a BBC producer?
They should have decorated him.
Bring back a vehicle similar to a 1996 Buick Roadmaster with a tow package that could tow a suitable amount of home maintenance supplies and/or a sports car, and I would trade my SUV for it.