The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy tells the story of Frogstar B, pretty much the most evil planet around. Frogstar B had been a happy planet until things got just a little bit depressing… and people started to look down at their feet. They started buying shoes. They became obsessed with shoes. Designing, making, and selling shoes of increasingly shoddy quality became the primary occupation of the whole world. When the economy finally collapsed, the people of Frogstar B gave up in disgust and evolved into birds.
I found these two vehicles in a hotel parking lot yesterday. Ninety percent of the spots were empty, but these two were huddling together, perhaps for warmth. It put me in mind of a discussion I had with a PR fellow at Cadillac back around the time of the CTS-V Challenge.
Discussing the then-new SRX, he stated, “The (Lexus) RX(350) is the template for this class and we approached it head-on.” Doing so has proven to be the correct strategy; the SRX is, I believe, currently the volume leader for Cadillac, whereas its sales in its previous iteration — RWD tall wagon with a honkin’ Northstar — were mostly theoretical. With this example firmly in place, it would take a very stupid, or egocentric, manufacturer to approach the class with anything but an RX clone. Surely Nissan, in particular, wished it had simply tarted-up the Murano to create an FX35, rather than creating the current “Bionic Panther” which swallows fuel and cramps its occupants in equal measure.
With that avenue closed for now, Nissan decided to simply copy the RX line-for-line with the Rogue, as seen above. In a previous 3WTP I pointed out that Hyundai has also nearly mastered the Lex-a-like formula.
I don’t envy the men and women who are tasked with planning the next generation of CUVs. If they don’t imitate the RX, they won’t get the sales, and their bosses will want to know why. If they do imitate the RX, they risk losing brand identity, losing out to cheaper copies from elsewhere, and simply digging deeper into a tunnel of aesthetic development which we already know to be a dead end.
Alternately, they could bet on something completely different. If and when the inhabitants of the suburban Frogstars decide to fly away, they could be the ones to sell the wings. It’s just soooo hard to see the future, you know?
Family sedans aren’t much better. Many of the shapes seem to be the start of the “Clone Wars.”
Exactly.
And the disappearing rear window is making the back up camera a basic necessity instead of an option.
I remember I used to make a game of shouting out what car was ahead of me.
Today I am wrong 90 percent of the time because it could actually be most cars until you see the emblem.
I learned not to trust those damn backup cameras the hard way. I was test-driving an Acura RL and the saleslady insisted that I use it to back out of the parking space. I promptly ran into a low-hanging retaining wall. She insisted that I continue with the test drive, though. She told me the accident was her fault.
A few days later, they called me and told and caused about $600 in damage to the car, which, incredibly enough, they asked me to pay for, despite the fact that the saleslady admitted it was her fault. The ended up taking me to court and the judge dismissed the case.
It struck me: what if that retaining wall had been kid, or someone’s pet?
The best safety features in your car are the two thingies in your head called your “eyes.”
My guess is future hatches will have even more of a slant. The original RX from 1999 could be considered boxy in comparison.
I for one would argue that Infiniti FX is no longer a utility vehicle.
Not so sure the RX or most of these CUV are for utility.
The cool slanting of the rear makes it almost simply a style statement rather than anything else.
There are a few left. The Tiguan and others still have a sort of boxy look.
And isn’t this why the Escape sells so well?
Is Ford going to screw this up by making the new look RX like?
..and what will happen when Americans finally realize all these unibody CUVs are really just oddly proportioned station wagons?
(especially obvious on a dropped FX, but there in any profile shot..)
http://www.autospecifications.org/car-reviews/wp-content/uploads/infiniti-fx-2.jpg
http://www.tiptopglobe.com/big-photo/car-infiniti-fx-35-1.jpg
I pray that this generation of kids will see SUVs and CUVs for the mom-mobiles that they are, rebel, and get something cool when they grow up, like a station wagon.
That’s why us Norwegians buy CUV’s, because ‘regular’ station wagons have no room in the backseats anymore :P And we have ‘real’ winters so the AWD systems will actually be used by some of us. The silly side hinged rear door, and extra thirst is just something I’ll have to learn to accept. Someone mentioned it’s a lot like carsa from the 40’s and early 50’s, and I believe that’s quite right. The manufacturers have happened to fall into a fashion thing that’s actually practical. (allthough I know lots of the people who buy them, like SUV and truck buyers don’t really need them)
@Detroit Iron: “I pray that this generation of kids will see SUVs and CUVs for the mom-mobiles that they are, rebel, and get something cool when they grow up, like a station wagon.”
I’m 32 and a dad, and I pretty much see SUVs and CUVs that way. Except that SUVs are overbuilt for suburban duty, and CUVs are wannabes. I’d *love* to find a useful little wagon.
Alas, very-used minivans are just as efficient, and far cheaper than wagons of with similar histories.
I don’t see a lot of resemblance between the Cadillac SRX and the Lexus RX350. Maybe it’s my glasses or Cadillac did a good job and only left subliminal messages.
To me the Cadillac SRX is now the styling leader (not sales)in this segment.
Strange how uniform people’s tastes are, even from different parts of the world. Back in the 1940s the cars are also just variations of the same theme, they’re all the same bulbous shape with sort of separate fenders and tall, prominent ‘hood’. And in 1980’s, they’re all the same jellybean shape. It seems that in any particular time, there’s one car that represent what the public wants at that time, and if you want to be successful, you have to copy that shape. Also, it’s funny how the shape and height of today’s SUV is kind of like that of 1940s cars. Seems like the sedans become too long, low and wide during the subsequent decades that it’s become hard to enter/exit, people’s preferences are taller cars with about the same seat height as their hip point, just like 1930-1940s cars. Hence the popularity of crossovers. Now if they can make crossovers in the shape of 1940s cars, that’ll be great!
Yes, exactly! The cars in the 40s were huge inside, with tons of headroom (for hats) and leg room. The CUV is the modern equivalent of a 40s sedan and despite the hurt feelings of the station wagon enthusiasts, they are going to remain popular and will be with us for a very long time. It has nothing to do with off-road capability, but then again most SUVs aren’t used that way, either. It’s all about roominess, particularly in the vertical dimension.
The cars would be even roomier if they were equally high from a lower base; i.e, if they utilized more of the lower end of that vertical spectrum — hey, look, it’s a tall station wagon!
Stupid unnecessary SUV/CUV ground clearance is a waste of vertical inches.
To be completely honest, even as a car guy who can normally (or used to) tell the difference between most cars, it has always been like this. It’s not that easy to tell any early 30’s Ford or Chevrolet apart for those with little interest in cars, as much as it’s hard to tell a 57 Chevy apart from a same year Chrysler from a distance (OK, maybe just from the side). In the mid 60’s all American cars wanted to look like Pontiacs etc. And who can tell a -‘(insert any car from the 90’s)’ from a -‘(insert any car from the 90’s)’?…
On a side note, for someone with a lesser ego than myself and Zaphod Beeblebrox, I would avoid Frogstar B. (I’m sure Jack would survive the Total perspective Vortex, but it’s not recommended…)
Actually I’ve become convinced that Jack Baruth might in fact be Zaphod Beeblebrox.
It’s reassuring that so many people on TTAC know the classics. :)
He sure has the required ego, albeit perhaps not quite the requisite number of heads to keep it in.
There was a really fun period in the early sixties, however, when the different makes tried to do something truly unique with their looks.
Remember this period????
Fords from 1960 to 63 were really something as were the Chevy Impala super sports or the 1963 Polara coupe…what else looked like these cars?
They were all really different from each other…
Everybody left the GIANT fins and started to down-size big time.
Very cool period for car design.
It just told me what I knew all the time. I’m a really terrific and great guy.
Don’t let it go to your heads…
isn’t there a few factors at play?
1stly they are bound by ncap and pedestrian safety rules
2ndly you either go conservative or you can go all out like the Jukes and the CRVs of the world (yes I put the new CRV into a bit of an adventurous styling class)
this isn’t going to be an area with breakthrough styling… so its either conservative or flights of fantasies with nothing in between
To out a biological slant on it: Maybe its a case of convergent evolution where the selection pressure of common tastes and safety regulation are causing manufacturers to adopt similar designs? Maybe, but there is no doubt that many manufacturers saved themselves a lot of R&D cash by just copying Lexus’s segment leading RX series.
This has been my thinking as well. The designers of the RX seem to have hit an almost universal sweet spot for CUVs. In China, BYD hasn’t been doing so well of late, so they fight back by releasing the S6 CUV, which is a design copy of the current RX, at a lower price point. The result? The S6 is now among the best selling CUVs in China. The influence of this design has benefited auto makers world wide.
In this size class (i.e., not big enough for even a semblance of a third row) I will always favor the original Subaru Forester of 1997-2008. It gives the sense of a high seating position without being tippy (in part because of the flat-4, I suppose) and you can see out of it in ANY direction in a few tenths of a second’s glance, unlike the Rogue and its ilk.
This is not to suggest that I don’t care about styling. Our family had five different new mid-’60s Pontiacs, two at a time, including a pair of ’65 Bonnevilles, a convertible and an air-conditioned wagon, so I would enjoy a world where that again became the styling ideal for American cars.
And it appears that the soon-to-be-released 2012 Impreza is bucking the trend as well, maintaining a decent-sized greenhouse and improving interior volume as well (though the rear window is not as upright as the Forester).
One manufacturer needs to step it up and be completely original.
Look what happened to The first Ford Taurus, all other cars were boxy, this one was not—Huge Success
Chrysler Minivans- FWD, Unibody-Huge Success
The Taurus was pretty much a copy of what Audi had been doing at the time and as such, introduced the mass US market to global design trends.
I’d pay ten bucks to see “Escape From The Planet Of The Crossovers.”
I remember when the first Lexus RX came out, my dad said “that car is going to be the future. You’re going to see a lot more cars like that.” I think even he was surprised to find out just how right he was. Any “most influential cars” list would be woefully incomplete without an ur-RX at this point.
Someone stop the planet, I want off…
Considering how long your dad has been watching and gawking at cars I’d take Vegas odds on any prediction he made.
Man, you guys are smart! When that first RX thing came out, I said it made the Aztek look beautiful! Shows how much I know.
The funny thing is, the original Lexus LS400 was basically a Mercedes clone.
Your right. The styling is very derivative although I see many more 1st gen LS on the road than Mercedes of the same vintage.
Car design is like song writing or movie making.
Take no chances…formulas and copies.
The Golden ages are all unique by definition.
The period in Music was, like recessions, only repeated or occurring every so many years.
Big Band followed by crap until the rock era.
Movies were golden in the late thirties followed by crap until the Panavision and epics of the early sixties…then crap until, well, I guess they still haven’t come back!
The engineering keeps getting awesom(er) and awesome(er). Sorry…but it felt right(er) to say it this way.
I own a first generation Lexus RX 300 and I love the car.
It is heartening to me to see so much outright copying of the basic shape of the Lexus 300 RX and the 350 RX.
As they say “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”
Has it occcured to anyone that of those two cars, one seems to have an Impreza rear, and the other an Audi/BMW rearend? And they both have Maybach headlights?
Such is the plight of those crushed by the Black Hole Sun of the almighty margin.
Just ask Tommy Hilfiger;
–even he doesn’t know where the Event Horizon is.
.
I’ve always theorized [well, since I saw the movie as a fetus; hoped] that there had to be life after black holes,
I just hope I won’t have to change my name to Dave or grow a huge Maximilian Schell-style pimp-beard.
(although it would make me look abit more like The Most Interesting Man In The World)
.
I guess, just as I’ve read from a few entrepreneurs about perfectly good products that fail for no good reason,
it will be up to Chance where the next design/formfactor supernova comes from.
.
-or just repair cost savings at the Margin-… oh sh*t!…
aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
Yay, Hitchiker’s Guide and the Black Hole in the same thread. I’m as happy as Vila in a pile of cash…
I think the current RX is a masterpiece of original design.
A slight adjustment to ride height and the FX50 21″ wheels would yield a sportier looking automobile than 90% of the sporty designs out there.
It is just gorgeous
Huh. Would have never thought so until you pointed it out. Most of the lowered RXs are typically overdone, but there’s a couple on Google image search that are tastefully done and look quite sporty.
Why not mimic the Benz and Bimmer CUV’s (don’t kid yourself, only the GL-class and G-class are SUV’s)?
Don’t mess with success! Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!
“Car enthusiasts” might not think too highly of “CUVs”, but there’s no denying that the market thinks otherwise. I don’t see any wagons flying off dealer lots – maybe Subaru Outbacks, but those are very close to CUVs.
Enthusiasts might lament the lack of station wagons, but explain why people aren’t flocking to Acura TSX wagons. Shouldn’t the Hyundai Elantra Touring outsell the sedan? Wagons are niche products – good for some buyers, and they are still definitely around, but the market has spoken.
Hatchbacks, on the other hand, are making a comeback. Aren’t Ford Fiesta and Focus sales 50/50 sedan/hatchback?
Marko – Excellent point on CUVs. While wagons may make more sense, women, even seniors seem to flock to CUVs. One attraction is the easier step-in with the CUV’s slightly raised height and higher rooflines. The Nissan Murano and Suburu Forester, two CUVs which come to mind, have nearly a perfect step-in, not too high like a traditional SUV, and not too low. To non-enthusiasts, if a CUV can attain respectable fuel economy, you can see the appeal over a conventional wagon.
I just picked up my 2012 Focus SE last week, and it was a hatch. First hatch I’ve ever owned, and now I don’t know if I can go back to life with just a sedan to be honest.
Also, I believe you are pretty spot on, a good balance between sedan and hatch exists for the Fiesta and Focus, although to be fair the Fiesta hatch looks much better than it’s sedan counterpart. (I’d say the same about the Focus, although not as drastically, which is why I bought one ;))
Now come on, folks…these were all copies of the REAL hatches of the War…and early fifties.
Remeber these big bombers!?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ChryslerDeSoto1946side.jpg
Why is everyone insistent that wagons make more sense than CUVs?
There’s a lot to like about CUVs that others have already brought up. Step in height, better seating position, more cargo space, better visibility, etc. Sometimes, I’d much rather drive a Camry based CUV in a city than a Camry.
Yeah… CUVs that offer you more ground clearance to not go off-road, and often less flood-fording capability than a comparable sedan (because they position the engine and intake lower in the bay… I laugh at the fact that neither our CR-V or Escape can ford as much water as my Protege), and more weight, both in body and suspension hardware required to carry it, for the same utility.
The best CUV ever was the older Forester. Lovely car that. The new one is a bit too mainstream for my tastes, but at least it still maintains a more utilitarian wagon-ish profile than other CUVs, with the attendant glass area advantages.
I’ve just driven the new Sportage. My God, a Genesis Coupe has better rear visibility than that thing!
Niky – I do like the rear visibility on old Forester.
Not that I care to ford streams in my Tribute, an Escape derivative – the intake on the Zetec 4 cylinder is up high by the battery and the alternator is just below the valve cover. Both of which are more than a foot above the axles. The lower door sills are 18″ above the ground, so a foot of water is my limit.
What type of water situation are you driving through in that Protege?
How often does anybody go off-road and when they do, how often do they ford serious water crossings? That’s a non-issue for all except a tiny fraction of the population.
And why are you crossing water on a regular basis? You really shouldn’t be regularly fording above your lower hub height anyway, even in a serious off-road road vehicle such as a LR Defender or LandCruiser 70. (The primary purpose of an off-road snorkels is to prevent dust, not water!)
Since January 98, when we had a preview event for the new RX at our dealership, I knew this vehicle was a game changer. We wrote over 50 orders that night, 3 months before the vehicle was introduced to the public.I’m always amazed how the automotive cognicenti ignores it in any comparison.I just read Michael Kareshe’s article on the Q5, a vehicle that blatenly targeted the RX in their intro ads, which by the way increased our RX sales dramaticaly at the time,and every other CUV was referred to except the RX.A loaded RX lists for under $49000, much less than a Q5,X3,GLK,SRX,etc. when it really competes with an ML,X5,Q7 etc. The only complaint about the RX is people say ther are to many on the road. In terms of value,(resale) saftey, and reliability there are no equals, maby that is why it dominates in term of sales.We are the 1st, 2nd,or 3rd largest Lexus dealer in the US,hense the world depending on what month your looking at,and the only vehicle that is tough to go up against is the MDX because of the 3rd row. Lexus should hav dropped the GX and replaced it with a larger 3rd.row RX while keeping the current RX350,450h.The other time we will loose against the above mentioned vehicles is because of “the hood ornament” if you know what I mean.Thank God the RX is a fancy Toyota.
Alternately, they could bet on something completely different.
Is a two-door Murano convertible different enough for you? How about the Juke, which looks like something from Frogstar?
Oh well…everyone who drives RX clones in this universe are driving Caprice clones in an alternate one…or compact pickups in another.