Who first used the term “Sports Utility Vehicle”?
Vintage Ad: 1948 Crosley Sports-Utility – The Mini-Proto-SUV
– Posted on May 22, 2023
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Curbside Classics Archives
Who first used the term “Sports Utility Vehicle”?
If I squint just right and imagine this with the roof removed… from the A-pillar to the back end I can see an MG TF with enclosed fenders… or a CJ-2A. Or maybe it’s a roadster/pickup?
With roof removed – looks like a rolling tent
What the dash looked like in 1948. Nice Crosley radio available. Also you could get an ashtray.
Believe or not, the radios in Crosley cars were made by Zenith up to about 1948, then Motorola from 1949-forward.
This really challenges the definition of “sport”, doesn’t it? Are we talking poker? Perhaps some small game like quail, ducks, geese – but nothing larger than a opposum for that size vehicle.
You couldn’t really sleep in it. Not really certain how practical it could be. Especially if you consider the competition at the time – Jeeps.
In U.S. auto advertising, I couldn’t find the phrase before Crosley/1948.
Here’s the Jeep/1961, Bronco/1965, and Chevy Blazer/1969.
I note that in the last 20 years I found “sport utility” as often as “sports utility,” but who knows what that means.
A related matter would be the gradual commonplace use of acronym “SUV” by average, non-gearhead people…
And here’s Willys, February 1941:
Very interesting.
In doing some quick research, it appears that the term “sports utility” was first widely used to refer to apparel – both men’s and women’s apparel such as coats, that could be used for for multiple purposes, were referred to as “sports and utility” in the 1920s, and this occasionally became shortened to “sports utility” in the 1930s.
It seems like these Willys and Crosley references were the first time the term was used for something other than clothing, though it seems that around the same time several boat manufacturers began using the term as well. Eventually the boat disappeared and by the 1960s, it referred exclusively to vehicles.
Looks like a perfect vehicle for a beach town, back in the day that is.
The postwar Crosley was the first full-width passenger car, with the body entirely outside the rear wheels, and the fenderwells entirely inside. Box trucks and larger panel trucks had been full-width for a long time, but not passenger cars. If the Jeep is considered a passenger car, it was full-width in ’41.
It needed to be, with its’ 49″ external width which was a case of “design for shipping” since they could be parked two-abreast in a railroad boxcar (how the driver got out of and then back into a sedan wasn’t described by my source on that!)
Crosley’s are and always were a joke .
Go look at one, I bet you’d not want it for free .
-Nate
For free?! Oh hell yes… line me up!
I do get your drift, but lining one of these postwar Crosleys with a King Midget, or the raft of bubble cars (mainly from Europe) that came slightly later, does put the Crosley in a slightly better light. By the end of production, they featured a real, water cooled 4-cyl OHC engine; four wheel hydraulic brakes; a conventional three speed transmission with reverse, unfortunately sans synchros. But it was pretty much a conventional American car, rendered in a size that was just a notch too small to fit the needs of American motorists.
I haven’t driven a Crosley, but I have seen them running and driving. I can think of a few (mostly fringe) cases where one might fit the bill… say lower speed driving in congested areas, puddle jumping in small towns. I wouldn’t mind sputtering along in my hometown taking in fall colors from the seat of one.
I hear you Sir ;
I like small cars, of late I’ve been running the wheels off my 1959 VW Bug, it’s a death trap make no mistake but I grew up with cheapo post WWII vehicles and think the Crosley was a serious niche product .
-Nate
Ive been watching a Crossley being ratrodded its tiny and thats a wagon version
Powell Crosley was a force in Cincinnati back in the day. He owned the baseball team and he created Crosley radio when his son wanted an early radio and Powell thought the prices were too high. Crosley was a successful radio maker and he also manufactured kitchen appliances. His cars were less successful, but then it’s much harder to be a major car maker than it is the other products he made.
And he’s buried on the family lot in Spring Grove Cemetery, beautiful corner lot with a big monument in Section 117 if memory serves.