Luxury SUV
Numerous luxury vehicles in the form of SUVs and pickup trucks are being produced. Luxury SUV is principally a marketing term to sell fancier vehicles which may have higher performance, comfort, technology, or brand image. The term lacks both measurability and verifiability, and it is applied to a broad range of SUV sizes and types.
Nevertheless, the marketing category was created in 1966 with Kaiser Jeep's luxurious Super Wagoneer. It was the first SUV to offer a V8 engine, automatic transmission, and luxury car trim and equipment in a serious off-road model. It came with bucket seating, air conditioning, sun roof, and even a vinyl roof. Land Rover followed suit in 1970 by releasing the Range Rover. The trend continued with other competitors adding comfort features to their rudimentary and truck-based models.
The production of luxury models increased in the late-1990s with vehicles such as the Lincoln Navigator and Cadillac Escalade. These luxury SUVs generated higher profit margins than non-luxury SUVs did. For some auto makers, luxury SUVs were the first SUV models they produced. Some of these models are not traditional SUVs based on light truck as they are classified as crossovers.
The luxury SUV class encompasses both smaller 5-passenger SUVs and larger 7-passenger SUVs, with luxury features both inside of the cabin but also in the outside. People who look for a luxury vehicle that offers more cargo capacity than a sedan may prefer a luxury SUV. This is also a vehicle aimed for those who prefer an SUV with a little more style.
Luxury SUVs typically offer the most expected safety features including side airbags, ABS and traction control, and many of them also come with electronic stability control, crash resistant door pillars, dynamic head restraints and back-up sensing systems.
The U.S. News & World Report Rankings and Reviews ranks premium midsize SUVs and crossovers based on an in-depth analysis by its editors of published auto ratings, reviews and test drives. Ranking is based on the score on performance, exterior, interior, safety, and reliability obtained by the vehicles.
Read more about this topic: Sport Utility Vehicle
Famous quotes containing the word luxury:
“Physical force has no value, where there is nothing else. Snow in snow-banks, fire in volcanoes and solfataras is cheap. The luxury of ice is in tropical countries, and midsummer days. The luxury of fire is, to have a little on our hearth; and of electricity, not the volleys of the charged cloud, but the manageable stream on the battery-wires. So of spirit, or energy; the rests or remains of it in the civil and moral man, are worth all the cannibals in the Pacific.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)