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What is a "crossover"?
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A new term that’s being bandied about in automotive circles to categorize vehicles is “crossover.”
Say what?
Say crossover. For many years, cars were cars and trucks were trucks and vans were vans. Certainly there were subsets of each, such as station wagons, compact cars, sports cars and pony cars and more. Variants on the pickup truck included the car-based Ford Ranchero and Chevrolet El Camino, but they were still trucks in the general vernacular. When minivans came along but they were still vans.*
Something new came in the ’90s, however, called the sports-utility vehicle. Although there were antecedents, particularly at Jeep** the boom in this segment began with the introduction of the Ford Explorer in 1990, bought by people who didn’t want a frumpy station wagon or soccer mom’s minivan.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to class up the minivan, Chrysler introduced the Pacifica with its 2x2x2 seating. Not a car, not a minivan, Chrysler called it a “segment buster,” a crossover between two vehicle types.
Then in the fullness 
of time, the luster began to fade from the SUV and when gas prices began to rise over the past two years, they became downright dingy. The ponderous size became a hassle in parking lots and fuel mileage in the teens were prompting second looks at household budgets. There were small SUVs, but they lacked that “car-like ride” that everyone suddenly seemed to want.
of time, the luster began to fade from the SUV and when gas prices began to rise over the past two years, they became downright dingy. The ponderous size became a hassle in parking lots and fuel mileage in the teens were prompting second looks at household budgets. There were small SUVs, but they lacked that “car-like ride” that everyone suddenly seemed to want.So manufacturers began to build vehicles that looked like SUVs and had the option of all-wheel drive but were built on automobile platforms. The Toyota Highlander is one example. Nissan went out on a limb and built something swoopy but still with the same ride height. That was the Murano***. Infiniti got its own version, the FX series.
A consensus began to form that there was something evolving that was neither car (despite the platform it was built upon) nor SUV (that despite its looks really wasn’t off-road worthy) nor the minivan that some also resembled. Although crossover had already been used for the Chrysler Pacifica (and the Mercedes-Benz R-Type that followed it), it seemed right for these neither-nor vehicles.
Yet the term isn’t always consistently applied. Some manufacturers and industry observers call anything built on an automotive platform a crossover. Thus the Mercedes-Honda CR-V and Subaru Forester, SUVs at birth have morphed into crossovers in middle age, mainly because of a change in definition.
Others say if it looks like a duck even if it doesn’t walk like one, it’s still an SUV. Then there’s finer slice of the pie that some call the
“crossover SUV.”
“crossover SUV.”New on the crossover scene, however, are the Ford Flex and the Dodge Journey****. Openly called crossovers, both have lost some SUV ruggedness but still say tough guy around the edges to skirt the soccer mom stigma. They retain the higher-the-a-car ride and they both have optional all-wheel drive but aren’t intended to go off-road any more than the automobile built on the same platform they are.
We’re surely not going to resolve this any more than theologians of the Middle Ages could decide how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. But we do know that there are multiple definitions of what a “crossover” is. We’re still trying to figure out why a Chrysler PT Cruiser is considered an automobile but the Chevrolet HHR is an SUV and we’re really puzzled over what to call the Honda Element.
However, to really get into an is-so/is-not argument, just ask car enthusiasts just what defines a “sports car”…and stand back.
*Yes, we know the Volkswagen Microbus came first.
**Yes, we know the Ford Bronco, the International Harvester Scout and others came first.
***Yes, we know the Isuzu Vehicross came first.
****Yes, we know the school bus came first, but they were only available in orange.
Illustrations, top to bottom: 2009 Infiniti FX, 2001 Subaru Forester, 2009 Dodge Journey. All photographs courtesy of the respective manufacturer.
For crossover reviews and road tests, visit carubuzzard.com.
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