Page 48 - 2019 Auto Show Guide

By Jack Gayle

nevitably, whether we like it or not, certain trends once designs of Harley Earl from the comfortable safety of the
again become popular after a few decades’ hiatus. From twenty-first century, our descendants will no doubt criticize
Ifashion to music, architecture to fad diets, we are predictable our liberal use of non-functional scoops and vents and blacked
creatures intent upon reinventing the wheel, claiming it’s out C pillars. But what will they admire? What will become
all-new, and then proceeding to make it so ubiquitous that a classic worthy of copying or resurrecting in the future? As
we once again become disgusted by it — at which point we’ll cars have slowly given way to compact SUVs, which models
reach a few years farther back for inspiration and start the of these high-riding car cousins will be heralded for their
whole process over again. We often see similar reinventions forward-thinking designs or spectacular uniqueness? Though
in the automotive landscape, a complex ecosystem in which many of Harley Earl’s designs seem quaint and outdated today,
the evolution of personal transportation sometimes flouts all the significance of the 1938 Buick Y-Job, the world’s first true
of Darwin’s conventional wisdom, choosing instead to blaze concept car, cannot be denied. (It’s also gorgeous, so there’s
a more unique trail while chasing consumers’ hard-earned that, too.) Most critics point to the Jeep Cherokee and Ford
dollars at all costs. But despite what many automakers claim Explorer as harbingers of the coming SUV craze, but those were
when uttering phrases such as “all-new” or “segment-busting,” rugged SUVs lightly disguised as family transportation. Very
trends eventually disappear only to return again, and while little of their respective designs is present in today’s current
it might seem easy to laugh at some of the aircraft-inspired crop of SUVs, so I have five alternative suggestions that I feel
better predicted the role of the SUV in our current society and
will serve as better time capsules (and inspiration) for our
ancestors in the future.

4. BMW X6 (2008)
Love it or hate it, there’s no denying the
influence of BMW’s controversial X6.
Taking the original Mercedes CLS’s de-
sign brief — make a more gorgeous but
less practical E class, call it a “coupe,”
and sell it for more money — the BMW
X6 defied critics and reshaped what
people expected from SUVs, in terms of
5. Nissan Murano (2003) both design and performance. It’s more 3. Lexus RX 300 (1999)
audacious and even more cynical than
When the Nissan Murano exploded Perhaps one of the most important cars
the original Porsche Cayenne, a true ex-
onto the automotive landscape in all of of the twenty-first century — no, that’s
ample of form tap dancing across the
its beaked glory, it completely changed not hyperbole — the original Lexus RX
battered face of function, gloriously and
the way people perceived midsize SUVs. 300 gave less angry and more success-
unapologetically so.
Stylish and futuristic, the Murano helped ful Gen Xers their first taste of the auto-
shape Nissan’s design language in ways motive good life, and it became a sales
the Altima and Maxima never could and smash in the process. Quite literally ev-
gave upwardly mobile families an aspi- ery single small, luxury SUV owes its life
rational SUV from a mainstream brand. to the Lexus RX, as well as every car or
One could even argue that, for better or SUV that has flaunted clear taillights.
worse, it created a world in which the
following SUV was possible.

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