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Crossover Crazy

Crossovers seem to be taking over the automotive world, and I am still not entirely sure i know exactly what one is. These days every car seems to come under the crossover umbrella depending on which review or website you look at. Essentially, any car that isn’t the exact same size/shape as every other car on the planet, can now be considered a crossover.

One good example of a crossover, I feel is the Mercedes Benz GLA Class, from the front it looks like a hatchback from the side it looks a little more like an estate with a backside that looks like a 4×4 or SUV. So I guess classically the crossover is a bit bigger than a hatchback, yet smaller than a SUV, whilst capitalizing on some of the practicality of a typical SUV. However it seems crossovers don’t really have to be an in between car, I was looking at a list of some of the most popular crossover cars and there were some featured that are literally just all out 4x4s, it featured the Land Rover Range Rover, the Jeep Grand Cherokee, the Porsche Cayenne Turbo, the X5 the Touareg the list goes on and on. I myself drive a second hand Porsche Cayenne and I would never in a million years describe it as a crossover, but sure enough it is on the list.

I thought I would take a look and see if I could find an official definition of what the term crossover actually means as I was getting a little confused by it. According to wikipedia:

A crossover (or CUV: crossover utility vehicle) is a vehicle built on a car platform and combining, in highly variable degrees, features of a sport utility vehicle (SUV) with features from a passenger vehicle, especially those of a station wagon or hatchback.

To me that sounds pretty similar to your MPVs (multi purpose vehicles) like your Skoda Roomster  for example.

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Are there too many cars on our roads Daihats-WHO?