Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Car makers from Toyota to General Motors to Volkswagen are adding more SUVs to their product plans in a move that will delight many drivers in Bahrain and neighbouring Gulf States who love the beasts of the roads.
They are reworking their product strategies and investments to bring more sport utility vehicles to showrooms amid a sharp turn away from small and medium-sized cars to meet the demand.
And even luxury marques are looking at introducing innovative designs into their model range to compete for business. SUVs and pickup trucks could soon make up two thirds of American light vehicle sales, for example, up from 56 per cent in 2015 and just under 60 per cent last year.
“The shift to trucks is profound,” said Mike Jackson, chief executive of AutoNation, the largest US auto dealership chain. Sedans are not only losing sales volume, but car makers and dealers are offering bigger discounts to move them out of showrooms, industry executives said.
Profit margins on SUVs and trucks are fatter. Automakers are bringing SUVs into segments that previously were only for cars. Cheaper petrol is emboldening some to add more SUVs based on bodyon-frame pickup truck designs - after years of shifting SUVs to lighter, car-like unitised body construction.
Ford is reviving its Bronco SUV. It was last built in 1996 after gaining notoriety as the vehicle used during O.J.
Simpson’s police pursuit. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles outlined plans to bring back a body on frame SUV for its Jeep line. And Subaru displayed its Viziv-7 SUV concept car during the recent North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
The Lexus UX concept SUV was also a crowd-puller. Lexus’Mark Reuss, head of global product development, said it is looking for ways to offer attributes of SUVs in more designs that are more innovative than the square-backed vehicles that dominate the category now. “You’ll see them in the next year,” he said, vehicles, he added, that offer ‘an alternative to a box’.
