Millions of American kids grew up in the back of station wagons—big full-frame long-roof machines with tailgates designed for ease of loading and ample capacity for children and cargo. Years after the folks traded the wagon in for something newer, fresher, and better, station-wagon kids began pining for them. The ones attached to the memories of youth will always be the best—and the ones they’re willing to pay handsomely for.
The American SUV is the modern equivalent of the station wagon. I'm not talking about the unibody “soft roader” brigade, which is basically a compact hatchback on tippy-toes. When we say SUV, we mean full-frame machines such as Tahoes, Navigators, Toyota 4Runners, and the like. Their function and their status are the same. In the future (say, 30-odd years from now) they’re going to blow up.
SUVs are the meat of the market now, especially as car companies are abandoning passenger cars left, right, and center. Plenty are being built, but like station wagons before them, plenty more are being driven, used up, wrecked, and crushed. The ones that remain will, in time, become special. They will fill the future collector’s needs. It’s happened before, and it will happen again.
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