Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 20, 1995 TAG: 9508180027
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It's the hip thing to do.
And the hip thing to drive there is a new, four-wheel drive, sport-utility vehicle.
Jeep Cherokees, Toyota Land Cruisers, Isuzu Rodeos - their manufacturers promote them as rugged, go-anywhere adventure-mobiles, with glossy brochures picturing them in the middle of a scenic wilderness. These vehicles average about 17 miles to the gallon, about half the mileage of average new cars.
What gives here? Why would someone, say, contribute to a national environmental organization trying to save the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge from being ripped open by oil companies, then hop in their Land Cruiser to go grocery shopping?
"The main reason they want them, I think, is to be prepared," said Jeff Berger, a salesman at First Team Auto Mall in Roanoke. He sells Isuzu Troopers, and the more popular Isuzu Rodeo.
"They don't go off-road, I can tell you that. Can you imagine taking a $25,000 vehicle that's just gorgeous off-road?"
Berger said sales of sport utility vehicles have steadily increased - now at 21 percent of First Team's total sales - and spiked over the past several winters when the Roanoke Valley was hit with ice and snow storms. It was then that motorists wanted road-hugging handling of four-wheel drive.
But few people actually use all four wheels.
Berger said he heard a figure recently that 95 percent of 4WD vehicles are never put in four-wheel drive.
Here in the Roanoke Valley, folks rarely need a four-wheel drive to get around, he said.
Jeff Humphreys, salesman at Haley Toyota in Roanoke, agreed. "I guess it's just a mystique about having a four-wheel drive, just in case. But in reality, you don't really use it."
But they're selling. This year, Humphreys has sold half a dozen Toyota Land Cruisers, a top-of-the-line sport utility that fetches $40,000 and gets 12 miles to the gallon around town. That's compared to the one or two a year he used to sell.
People who can afford sport utilities - which start around $17,000 for a Suzuki Sidekick - can afford the gas and the extra upkeep for the 4WD, he said. The last Land Cruiser he sold was to a Lexington couple who had won the lottery.
"That's a horse of vehicle. It'll go anywhere," Humphreys said. "The majority of people use it to go back and forth to work, to be honest with you."
Most makers of sport utilities make the same models with front-wheel drive, but they're not readily available here because they simply don't sell, the salesmen said.
And next year, Mercedes-Benz will be putting its version of the sport utility on the American market, said Richard Long at West Motor Sales. Mercedes currently sells a sport utility in Africa, Asia and Europe - a vehicle akin to the Land Cruiser and about as expensive.
"We have people already wanting to put a deposit on them," said Long, who also thinks there's some degree of overkill in having a four-wheel drive in the Roanoke Valley.
"I guess it's a psychological thing. They like the macho look. It's a nice image," he said. "And they're waiting for that snow to hit Roanoke."
That's one reason that Roanokers David and Elizabeth Harris are hooked on four-wheel drives. The young couple recently bought their third one, a 1991 Toyota 4-runner, for $16,000.
They're selling their 1986 4-Runner, which David Harris bought years ago after he got stuck in one inch of snow in his driveway in his Toyota MR-2, a sports car shaped like a doorstop.
Elizabeth Harris owns a 1991 Bravada, Oldsmobile's sport utility model. They like the sport utilities because of the space - to haul wood, their 74-pound Labrador, Max, and their stuff when they go on vacation.
"We don't go four-wheeling or anything. We want to keep them nice," she said.
John Goodloe's black Jeep Grand Cherokee is "Quadra-Track," meaning all four wheels are engaged all the time. He has needed the 4WD feature only a few times when he was ocean fishing.
He likes the room it affords, especially with a newborn son and all the equipment that goes along with him - carriage, crib and so on. But gas mileage is "horrible," Goodloe said. He gets 15 miles per gallon. (The good news is, his employer paid for the vehicle, pays gas, insurance and maintenance.)
Gas mileage for sport utilities probably won't get much better because customers are demanding more power and more safety features as the vehicles become more family-oriented cars, said Alex Tsigdinos, a spokesman for Michigan's Chrysler Corp., which makes Jeeps and Wranglers.
Despite their thirst for petroleum, the vehicles are spacious, stylish and safe, Tsigdinos said. And consumers like the security of having four-wheel drive and off-road capability, even if they don't use it.
Although it's likely only a few sport utilities sold these days will ever touch tire off of pavement, that rugged, go-anywhere image still holds and is promoted in advertising.
"The road to adventure is rarely paved," reads an Isuzu Rodeo brochure. Phrases like "Real adventure ... road -gripping ... rock-solid chassis ... heavy-duty suspension ... " in the advertisement appeal to consumers, many of whom probably sit in an office all week and are tied to the lawnmower all weekend.
The picture shows a mud-splattered Rodeo with two mountain bikes mounted on top conquering a rock-strewn road. Underneath, the brochure says Isuzu sponsors the federal Bureau of Land Management's "Back Country Byways" program.
BLM spokesman Bob Johns said Isuzu is a "substantial" corporate contributor to the program, which opens old roads once used for mining, timber and other activities for recreation. The agency, which owns 270 million acres all out West, has opened a total of 3,100 miles of paved, gravel and dirt roads during the past 10 years.
"Folks like the notion of being alone," he said, and these back roads afford them an opportunity to have an outdoor experience somewhere between a wilderness adventure and plugging an RV into running water and electrical services.
Johns said Isuzu includes educational brochures in most new vehicles that explain how to "tread lightly" in the outdoors, and not to leave designated roads. Most people will abide by the rules, but there's always a "few bad apples" that take off across the desert or some other fragile ecosystem, running over prairie dog holes or rare cactus plants.
Tsigdinos, with Chrysler's Cherokee Jeep, said Jeep is one of the founding sponsors of Tread Lightly!, an organization which promotes responsible off-highway recreation. And he bristles at being lumped in with other sport utility vehicle manufacturers.
"We do not show our Jeeps smashing through the muck, or barreling through streams," he said. "They're shown in beauty shots, to show you can get where other vehicles can't."
But take note: Sport utility vehicles cannot squeeze into the smaller parking spots on the street or at the mall.
by CNB