Car companies paint two broad brush strokes to define who buys what kind of truck, and it comes down to need versus desire.
“Mini-vans are life-stage vehicles of necessity,” said Joel Pitcoff, Ford Motor Co.’s market analyst. “Mini-vans tend to be bought principally by larger families with children living at home.”
Sport-utility vehicles and pickup trucks, on the other hand, are “lifestyle vehicles of choice,” Pitcoff said. Many people buy them as much for the image as the utility.
The mini-van buyer is married with children, and the SUV and pickup buyer is more likely to be single or an empty-nester. Once the children move away, the life-stage need for the mini-van disappears, and owners are likely to change to a different vehicle.
Bob Clucas, truck category manager for Nissan North America, said 70 percent of Nissan Pathfinder SUV owners are married and 30 percent have children at home. For Nissan’s Quest mini-van, the number of married owners rises to 90 percent and those with children more than doubles to 62 percent.
“We find that people shop for a mini-van when they’re starting a family, and they see that a sedan just won’t do the job,” Clucas said.
The typical mini-van seats seven and the typical SUV five, which should make the van the logical choice for families that need lots of room. Logic isn’t always the motivator.
“A lot of people are turned off by the image of the mini-van,” Clucas said. “It’s a `Mommy-mobile,’ and a lot of people are unhappy with that image.”
An SUV may offer less utility, but the sporty image often wins buyers over, he said.
“People are buying a dream. It’s the dream of the rugged off-road vehicle, the vehicle that can take them into the jungle, take them camping, take them anywhere to do whatever they want to do.”
By most auto industry estimates, only 5 to 10 percent of SUVs go off-road, yet most of these vehicles are sold with four-wheel-drive.
“Here in Southern California, we’ve got a lot of people driving 4×4 sport-utilities,” Clucas said. “Like my wife. She has a 4×4 just in case she ever goes to where there is snow, and she can use it.”
Pickup trucks are attractive for some of the same reasons as SUVs, and many buyers choose them over a car not because they have to but because they want to.
“The interesting thing about the truck segments is the psychographics behind the buying decisions,” Clucas said. “People enjoy their buying decisions very much. Our pickup owners tell us, `It just fits me. It fits me like a pair of jeans.’ “
The mini-van market grew rapidly in the 1980s, and the SUV segment has soared in the 1990s, but the pickup market edged up only to 2.9 million units in 1996 from 2.7 million in 1986.
What has changed, though, is that many pickup owners have moved from compact trucks to full-size models. Ford’s statistics show that compact pickup sales fell to 956,633 last year from a peak of 1.45 million in 1986 and sales of big trucks grew to 1.9 million from 1.25 million.
“The whole economy has grown and with it there is now a `bigger is better’ attitude,” said Aaron Shin, marketing plans manager for the Ranger, Ford’s compact pickup. “Full-size trucks have become much more of a personal-use vehicle.”
Ford’s Pitcoff says the shift to bigger pickups and SUVs has been helped by stable gas prices.
“The further away you get from the last fuel crisis, the less sensitive the market is to fuel economy as a buying factor,” he said.
“In days of yore, pickups were primarily work vehicles used by farmers, plumbers, carpenters and contractors. It’s reached a point now where 80 to 90 percent of pickup trucks are bought by individuals for personal use.”
Ford is seeing buyers shift from mid-size SUVs such as the Explorer to higher-priced, full-size models such as the Expedition.
Sales of light trucks–SUVs, vans and pickups–climbed to 6.9 million last year from 4.9 million in 1986. Most of that growth came at the expense of cars. Passenger cars fell to 8.5 million in 1996 from a record 11.4 million in 1986. That’s down to 55 percent from 70 percent of all light-vehicle sales.
Though buyers are deserting cars for trucks, they are demanding that pickups and SUVs be more like cars.
“Ten years ago, the pickups and utility vehicles were very trucky,” Clucas said. “They were not something a family would be comfortable in.”
When Nissan redesigned the Pathfinder for the 1996 model year, it tried to make it more refined and comfortable and “less hard-edged” than the previous version, he said.
“Buyers are telling us, `I want to be able to get inside, I want comfort, and a great stereo. I want everything you can get in a luxury car, and I want the utility.’ “
The bulk of SUVs are truck-based, including the Explorer, the Chevrolet Blazer, Toyota 4Runner, and even luxury models such as the Lexus LX450, a dressed-up version of the Toyota Land Cruiser.
Recent additions to the SUV market, however, include the car-based Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4, and Subaru has been successful with its Legacy Outback, a four-wheel-drive station wagon with SUV trappings.
Lexus will add a new SUV in 1998, the FX300, derived from the ES300 luxury sedan. General Manager Jim Press says the FX300, which will be in the $30,000 to $35,000 range, was designed more like a car than truck.
Lexus found in its research that buyers didn’t need true off-road capability, and they wanted better fuel economy, a more comfortable ride, and easier entry and exit than typical SUVs.
He describes the FX300 as “more of an all-weather recreation vehicle” than a rugged off-roader and says it will have “car-like ride and handling” and fuel economy.
Mercedes will join the SUV market this fall with the M-Class, a truck-based SUV the company calls “a true off-roader with the comfort of a passenger car.”
“Probably 95 percent of the buyers will never go off-road, but it is important to have the capability if they need it,” said Steve Cannon, M-Class marketing manager.
Mercedes dismissed the idea of a car-based SUV.
“All of our research indicates they (consumers) still want the real thing,” he said. “They don’t want an imitator.”
As a latecomer to the market, Mercedes learned what not to do from some older SUVs. Most have extra ground clearance for off-roading, and the height makes it harder for people to get in or out of the vehicle.
. “A lot of women like the command-of-the-road feel that comes from the higher ride height, but their concern is the step-in height, especially if they’re wearing a skirt,” Cannon said.
Mini-van sales have leveled off at 1.2 million, but SUV sales reached a record 2.2 million last year. Most in the auto industry expect the SUV market will continue to grow for several years.
Last year, GM shut its Arlington, Texas, plant that built full-size, rear-wheel-drive sedans. When the plant reopens this year, it will produce Chevrolet Tahoes and GMC Yukons. Chrysler Corp. has switched its Newark, Del., plant from LH sedans–Chrysler Concorde, Dodge Intrepid and Eagle Vision–to the Dodge Durango, an SUV that will go on sale in the fall.
Will the boom in trucks in general and SUVs in particular end? “People have been asking that question for years, but the beat goes on,” Pitcoff said.
Trucks account for 45 percent of the light-vehicle market in the U.S., and Ford expects it to hit 50 percent early in the next century. More than half of the vehicles Ford Motor Co. sells are trucks.
However, as Baby Boomers, who have largely fueled the truck growth, age, they may have less need or desire for trucks.
“The older you get, the less likely you are to need a mini-van,” Pitcoff said. “You’re also less likely to be interested in the recreational aspects of a vehicle.”
