Question: Will Gigantic SUVs Symbolize Freedom and Rebellion In 20 Years, As 1960s Muscle Cars Do Now?
The SUV arms race has been over for a few years now, with four-ton, leather-lined, full-framed trucks no longer appearing to be viable as the middle-class commuter machines they were during the SUV-crazed 1990s and 2000s. Oh, sure, you can still buy the things, but Times Have Changed. If we are to draw a parallel between the Golden Age of the Muscle Car (during which Detroit slapped off-the-shelf luxury-car engines and $27 worth of scoops and graphics on midsize commuter cars and made crazy money) and the Golden Age of the Big-Ass SUV (during which Detroit slapped off-the-shelf pleather and Simu-Wood™ trim and $27 worth of badging on full-sized work-truck chassis and made crazy money), then we are now in the SUV equivalent of about 1976. If so, this means that, in another decade or two, nostalgia for Navigators and Escalades will kick in, just as it did for GTOs and Super Bees in about 1985, and— just as with muscle cars— the love of these absurd luxo-trucks will take on symbolic connotations of past glory, an era before nanny-state killjoys, and so on.
The late 1960s actually sort of sucked, with crime rates more than doubling in less than a decade, cities on fire, increasingly quagmiric conflicts in Southeast Asia, and so on. Some of the music was pretty good, but most of it was insipid schmaltz that made you want to install glasspacks on your Super Cobra Jet 428 Torino just to drown it out. Most of the muscle cars of the era were also pretty bad in real life, requiring slicks, aftermarket engine hop-ups, and a super-talented driver to get anywhere near the advertised acceleration figures (and don’t even try to drive on in stop-and-go traffic). And yet… go to any cruise night or car show full of 1960s muscle cars in the United States and you’ll hear about the greatness that was America before the insurance companies, Ralph Nader, and smog-obsessed Southern California politicians threw a big wet blanket over everybody. That means that owning, say, a ’70 Buick GS is a political statement for many. I predict that we’re going to see the exact same process with big body-on-frame SUVs by about 2022. Or not. What do you think?
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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If some of you guys actually think that SUV's will some day be big time collectibles like musclecars then maybe I should buy a few of them,store them, look you guys up in 20 years and sell them to you. I can also get you a great deal on the Brooklyn Bridge, and some prime real estate in FLA.
The last time I checked Lincoln Town Cars from the 70's were not high dollar collectibles. The best examples go for around 10-12k in Hemmings, the same ballpark they sold in when new. Same for most 70's Caddies. I have seen a few top notch Mark V's go for 20k, that's alot for a late 70's land barge, but that hardly puts it in musclecar territory. It doesn't take a car person to understand the reasons that musclecars are held in such high regard in the automotive world. They were part of what was considered the most colorful and exciting times in automotive history. They represent evenings at the burger joint, drive in movies, cruising the boulevard looking for chicks. Cruising around looking for someone to drag race, going to the drag strip on the weekends, working at the corner gas station anticipating getting that next paycheck so you can buy that set of headers you've been wanting for the past month. They are about the wild colors, stripes, scoops and graphics, the cool looking engines you see when the hood is popped. SUV's don't represent much of anything exciting, when people look at them 20 years from now they will mostly recall suburban housewives dropping their kids off at school and gangster wannabes cruising the ghettos wth spinners. I'm sure there will be a few that will be worth a few bucks, but certainly won't be anywhere near musclecar territory. Most musclecar owners would puke at the thought of even mentioning an SUV in the same sentence as a musclecar. Also, there is a huge difference between a collectible and just a nice old car.