SUVs, trucks, and crossovers dominate the sale charts nowadays, but today is not the era of peak SUV. No, SUVs were the coolest when they just started getting popular. That’s right, we’re going back to the 1990s!
This morning, Jason pointed out that tiny trucks and SUVs were so much smaller and cooler back then. If you were a buyer in the 1990s, your SUV test-drive list could include an Isuzu Amigo, Geo Tracker, Kia Sportage, and Toyota RAV4 in the cool three-door version. These little rigs were wonderful. They were smaller, they often had open tops, they were good off-road, and just a ton of fun. All of these trucklets reflected the optimism and playful nature of the 1990s and I agree with Taargus Taargus here:
This vehicle, along with its name (Amigo), simply comes from a more optimistic time.
It’d be neat if we could have such things again.
Here’s a supercut of those little guys, staring with a first-generation Toyota RAV4 (there’s one in the topshot, too).
Spacer
Above, the awesome first-generation Kia Sportage. I’ve seen these things rock so hard off-road.
Here’s a sweet Geo Tracker:
And the Amigo! What a great name.
Jason also found himself fascinated with an agricultural sprayer truck. I love this idea from SonOfLP500:
I’ve said it before in a previous thread: the Autopian needs to visit the big agricultural and construction machinery shows. My recommendation for agricultural machinery is EIMA, held in even-number years in Bologna. It’s a reasonable size and in Bologna, one of my favourite places in the world (unlike Agritechnica in Hannover, odd-number years, which is ridiculously vast and in… Hannover????).
For construction machinery, BAUMA in Munich or Shanghai or Conexpo in Las Vegas.
Any of these will bring out the easily gobsmacked eight-year-old in you.
Speaking of Jason, again, today he wrote about his confusion about why Jeep inverted its iconic taillight. StillNotATony gives the obvious answer:
They probably just hired an Australian taillight designer.
This must be true. I’m pretty sure we have to flip all of Lewin’s docs so the text is not upside down. That aside, do you want to see more stuff on agriculture and construction vehicles?
Have a great evening, everyone!
Been thinking about this since the original post this morning. By appearance alone, the RAV4 fits in with the rest of the group, but underneath, it doesn’t fit the mold at all. I believe it was based on an AWD Camry of the era, with a transverse engine, FWD bias, and most importantly, it was not BOF. The others were more competent off-road (out of the box) and could easily be modified for more prowess off road. The RAV4 could not.
Huh, I didn’t realize the first generation Kia Sportage was a body-on-frame vehicle. Probably because until this moment I’m not sure I’ve ever thought about the first-gen Kia Sportage at all…
Then again, looking at the Wikipedia entry which lists it as having two recalls for rear wheels falling off and also having the vehicle structure collapse in a crash test, it probably was for the best.
(muttering hoards approach)
Hold on now!
Stop!
Back with you!
Everyone take a step back and
Calm down.
There are plenty of these 90’s truncated-truck type vehicles to go around.
You’ve just gotta get in line and wait your turn like the rest of us.
Hey you!
Kid with the manual Accord wagon… get outa here!
Come back when it’s your aunt who’s dying, leaving an immaculate 96’ RAV4 two door rusting in the driveway.
(shotgun blast)
Get!
(shotgun blast)
Get!
That’s my rusty trucklette.
The 1st-gen Kia Sportage has always been my favorite of this era and a pretty underrated off-roader in my opinion, that’s why I’m glad that you pointed its off-road prowess out, and those Mazda Bongo underpinnings can really take some beating as well
It’s not just small SUVs. This was also the era that gave us the FZJ80 Land Cruiser