Photo: Kleber Silva
People didn't always want to buy big SUVs that pretend to be limousines as well. However, the SUV doesn't trace its lineage to just one brand or model. Just take this rendering as an example. It mixes a Chevy Camaro with a Range Rover Sport and that's somehow completely fine.
Land Rover is one of the first companies to develop a 4x4, but for the longest time, they were ignored by "normal" people. People really started paying attention to what they were doing once the Range Rover came out. Suddenly, you could pretend to be a member of the Royal family (British) while just going to the store for some milk.
But America also developed SUVs completely independently. The Chevy Suburban from the late 1930s is considered by many to be the grandfather of the SUV because it put a family-friendly body on top of a heavy-duty chassis. But Chevy did other cool stuff.
Think "utility vehicle" and you might imagine one of those super-brawny boxes from the 1970s, like the Chevy Blazer, as well as its archenemy, the Ford Bronco. Both nameplates are making comebacks, but they've become small crossovers, whereas this rendering by Kleber Silva proposes a fat slice of American sports utility luxury.
It's obviously just a Camaro face on top of a Range Rover Sport. But it once again reminds us that Chevy didn't actually make the Camaro of SUVs. Yes, it looks the part, but what people actually want is a supercharged V8 engine that wins drag races on the weekends and also works on the school run. In that regard, the Range Rover with its 500+ horsepower 5.0-liter is actually closer to the classic Blazer.
The Suburban does the V8 thing, but it's neither luxurious nor particularly sporty. The problem might be that modern 4x4 can't do as much with a small-block V8 as their counterparts from the era before autonomous braking and pedestrian detection.
But America also developed SUVs completely independently. The Chevy Suburban from the late 1930s is considered by many to be the grandfather of the SUV because it put a family-friendly body on top of a heavy-duty chassis. But Chevy did other cool stuff.
Think "utility vehicle" and you might imagine one of those super-brawny boxes from the 1970s, like the Chevy Blazer, as well as its archenemy, the Ford Bronco. Both nameplates are making comebacks, but they've become small crossovers, whereas this rendering by Kleber Silva proposes a fat slice of American sports utility luxury.
It's obviously just a Camaro face on top of a Range Rover Sport. But it once again reminds us that Chevy didn't actually make the Camaro of SUVs. Yes, it looks the part, but what people actually want is a supercharged V8 engine that wins drag races on the weekends and also works on the school run. In that regard, the Range Rover with its 500+ horsepower 5.0-liter is actually closer to the classic Blazer.
The Suburban does the V8 thing, but it's neither luxurious nor particularly sporty. The problem might be that modern 4x4 can't do as much with a small-block V8 as their counterparts from the era before autonomous braking and pedestrian detection.
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