Question: Will Gigantic SUVs Symbolize Freedom and Rebellion In 20 Years, As 1960s Muscle Cars Do Now?

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?

DIGITAL JUICE