5 minute read
Alan Kidd There were 4x4s, then there were SUVs, now there are RUVs
Alan Kidd Editor
So there used to be cars, and there used to be 4x4s. You bought a car if you didn’t want to go off-road and you bought a 4x4 if you did. Then people realised that 4x4s were also better on the road than cars and started buying them for that too, so 4x4 makers decided they could get away with making things that looked like 4x4s but were mainly just cars really and thus dawned the day of the SUV.
Now, I like SUVs and enjoy the part of my job that involves test driving them. But I know very well that plenty of hardcore offroaders look down their noses at what they see as wannabes or fakes. It’s always been this way, a kind of upside-down snobbery towards people with vehicles that are more comfortable than yours.
For instance, I remember Brian Hartley, one of this magazine’s founding fathers, telling me about the grief he got from his off-roading mates fi rst time he turned up in a Range Rover. The word ‘handbag’ was used – and that was when Range Rovers had live axles and rubber fl oors.
The Range Rover back then was a vehicle with plenty of utility but no airy-fairy notions of having something to do with ‘sport’. It was classy but it was rugged. Just like the Shoguns, Troopers, Cherokees, Land Cruisers and so on that drove the 4x4 boom 20 years later that led to the creation of the SUV. Every single one of them was The Real Thing.
So I was delighted and reassured, but mainly driven to tears of laughter, when I read the other day that there’s now a thing called the RUV. Or the RSUV. Not sure if they’re interchangeable, but apparently they’re among the biggest growth areas in the global car market now.
They’re Rugged Utility Vehicles, is what they are. Or Rugged Sport Utility Vehicles, if you prefer. Either way, we’re not talking about things like the John Deere Gator or Kawasaki Mule, but the latest lifestyle wagons like the Ford Bronco, Jeep Wrangler and Land Rover Defender. From what I can tell, an RUV/RSUV is a vehicle that’s gone back to being able to walk the walk as well as talking the talk.
So, a 4x4, then.
The new SUV is an RUV. Or an RSUV. So, a 4x4, then… If you’re not a fan of bland, anodyne cars that follow a formula to make a buck, you should be pleased that this is the new direction the market is taking. You’ll also be enormously cynical about how rugged these things really are, but the mere fact that they’re designed around the idea of going places off-road is a very good start. I’ve lost count of the number of 4x4 launches I’ve been on where a PR person casually mentioned before we set off that there’s not actually any off-roading on the driving route. Of course, RUVs are not the simple, basic vehicles we remember from back then.
They’re laden with safety and emissions tech, all of which adds complexity and ramps up the cost. This in turn means the manufacturers need to price them high and in order to justify doing that, they need to stack them with fancy equipment which in turn means they need to price them higher than ever. That’s why a Defender 130 cost less than £25,000 in the late 1990s. Which is about £39,000 in today’s money – yet the new
Defender 130, which you’ll be reading about in a few pages’ time, starts at £73,895 and climbs to, get this, £100,645. At this point, you may fi nd yourself thinking of other things ‘RUV’ could stand for. I like the Defender. It’s wonderful at what it does, and one of the things it does is Be
Rugged. And we all want our 4x4s to be rugged again, remember? Maybe that’s why it’s vastly outselling the Discovery now. It’s certainly why SsangYong is adopting a new styling language designed to make its 4x4 look tougher. And why Volkswagen is bringing back the Scout brand in the USA as a maker of rugged wagons and pick-ups.
It’s why the Bronco has been a smash hit and the Wrangler is more popular than ever. For those of us who liked trucks the way they used to be, it’s why we moved into pick-ups as the supply of Shoguns, Trooper etc dried up. There are many brilliant SUVs out there – but in the real off-road world, the rise of the RUV doesn’t change the fact that it’s always been about good old 4x4s. Tel: 01283 553243 Email: enquiries@assignment-media.co.uk Web: www.totaloffroad.co.uk www.4x4i.com Online Shop: www.toronline.co.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/totaloffroad www.facebook.com/4x4Mag
Editor
Alan Kidd
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