This blending was seen in other places in the automotive market.īefore Subaru hit the market with DL station wagon Ford and Chevrolet blended the idea of the car and pickup giving birth to the Ranchero and El Camino. "Crossover," according to most dictionaries, refers mainly to physical crossovers, like bridges and roads, and genre shifts, like when a classical musician makes the crossover to jazz by blending the two styles. Still the term crossover was not in specific use, at least as we understand its use today for marketing purposes. The vehicles worked well and sold well and pushed AMC sales up for several more years before changes in the market, namely new players in the nascent niche crossover market, put AMC out of business. Surviving Eagles look like the "early man" version of a CUV, sort of a missing link of the car world. The idea, though not fully formed, was refined into the AMC Eagle. Reportedly then-chairman Gerry Meyers reacted to the combination by saying, "What the hell is that?" The body was lifted by four inches to accommodate a transfer case and the wheel wells were opened to make room for larger tires. Their first experiment was taking an AMC Concord and equipping it with a Jeep driveline under chief engineer Roy Lunn's guidance. As AMC sales flagged the company began blending elements of the two companies to boost sales and revive the badge. The next major player in the market was the AMC Eagle. Company ads claimed it "climbed like a goat, worked like a horse and ate like a bird." Yet there is no mention of it being a crossover vehicle despite meeting the basic criteria. Subaru of America introduced the four-wheel drive DL station wagon to the market in 1975. However, the evolution of the basic idea of a crossover vehicle follows relatively clear path, and it's along that path where the car is defined and the term crossover sees its first use in print.Ĭrossover vehicles began their introduction to the United States in the early 1970s. This loose definition strategy, something akin to "you'll know one when you see one," makes finding who coined the term "crossover vehicle" as difficult as defining the car itself.
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