Hooniverse Asks: What was History's Biggest Automotive Category Buster?

By Robert Emslie Aug 10, 2015

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You know that SUVs existed before there was the Ford Explorer, it just seems like it was the first. It just goes to show how one vehicle can capture the hearts – and wallets – of the car-buying public and call a category their own. The Mustang was the first pony car and to the great shame of the Camaros, Challengers, Firebirds and whatevers that followed, they all were classified as pony cars.
That’s generally known as being a category buster – a vehicle that so greatly changes or dominates a niche of the automotive market that often it is renamed in its honor. What we’d like today is a litany of those category busters and which you think is history’s greatest. So if you’re ready, please feel free to bust a cat.
Image: MotorTrend

0 thoughts on “Hooniverse Asks: What was History's Biggest Automotive Category Buster?”
      1. Very true – I thought about it and sort of wanted to leave it for someone else, but it definitely counts. The only thing that gives me pause is that it’s just so big, and is really a category unto itself. It hasn’t so much created a segment as it has done its own thing for decades.

    1. And in Europe and the rest of the world where the Wagoneers were too big. We got this, the first Range Rover. Luxury and capability and just the right size- the same as a current MINI Countryman.
      img src=”http://www.autojunction.in/wcsstore/AJeRetailStore/images/content/features/range-rover-classic-1970.jpg”

  1. The A-body Plymouth Barracuda hit the showrooms 16 days before the Mustang. Pony cars are really Fish cars.

    1. Had the Barracuda been attractive or interesting, or sold a bazillion units, then I would agree. The precise release date doesn’t mean anything. The Mustang’s success is what defines that class. (Note: I don’t even like Mustangs) It’s like saying the Beatles didn’t define their genre because some other band released their album first.

  2. 1973 Mercedes W116. Mercedes had been making high-end sedans for decades, but this is the one that became the gold standard for would-be competitors during the 1970s.

  3. The CRX Si was my first impression of what would later become called the Hot Hatch. I suppose in Europe there were Renault 5 Turbos, but they seemed like rally cars in street drag. Maybe the Scirocco might have been an earlier Hot Hatch, but the CRX Si really made the game.
    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/1987_Honda_CRX_Si%2C_rear_right_%28Lime_Rock%29.jpg/640px-1987_Honda_CRX_Si%2C_rear_right_%28Lime_Rock%29.jpg

      1. Yes. The Golf GTI was introduced in 1976, the CRX Si in 1985 or so. They’re almost a decade apart. Not that the Golf GTI was the first, but it was the first hot hatch that sold in great numbers. In the late 1970s.

  4. I get the Explorer and the Chrysler minivan, but down here in Texas there are two other plausible answers. The ’67-’68 Chevy/GMC pickup and its descendants; first pickup to routinely have factory A/C, power steering and power brakes. https://img.mecum.com/auctions/FL0112/FL0112-120234/images/FL0112-120234_1.jpg Started the concept of the family truck instead of just the work truck. In similar fashion, Chevy Suburbans were/are quite common way before the Explorer. http://www.velocityjournal.com/images/stk/1973/ch1973suburban47933242m.jpg

  5. Land Rover was synonymous with expedition/overlanding vehicles until some Japanese upstart with his 80 Series Land Cruiser stormed the market. Even the UN switched to the Land Cruiser from LR Defenders. They were cheaper to buy and less expensive to maintain. Today, Toyota is still trying to live on that legacy with the uber-expensive bloated pig of an SUV they currently pawn as a Land Cruiser.
    http://abc2xyz.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/LandCruiser1.jpg

      1. Actually, I think I’ve heard something about it being rebadged as the Dualis in Japan because Qashqai sounded too much like cash cow when said in Japanese.

    1. P-corp is owning the name “Targa” (inspired by the Targa Florio meaning “flowery shield”, so they picked up the shield theme) for anything car-related in Germany. So nobody else is going to sell a targa top in Germany without getting some registered mail.
      People tend to overly define what a targa roof is or isn’t, but considering the naming rights, that is a moot point: Targa is whatever P-corp chooses to call so. Luckily, they spared us the targa exhaust yet.
      To make it even more complicated: in common language, when average Germans talk about a “Targadach” they usually mean “a roof you take off the (any brand) car and put into the trunk” – this includes the roof of the 944 family (officially “abnehmbares Hubdach” – removable lifting roof), and sometimes even T-tops (an expression hardly heard outside car circles in German), but neither hardtops for convertibles nor collapsible tin roofs such as the VW Eos or MB SLK offered.
      I’m not sure about the English perspective.
      Apologies for this unsolicited rant, but it’s one of my internet missions to prevent people from saying “That’s not a targa” for the wrong reasons. Nobody did here yet, so I’m doing fine!

  6. Before this, small cars were a bit of a joke. Like Isetta bubble cars or three wheelers. Then came this proper four seater, that handled really well and could beat larger cars (Mini vs Galaxy on a race track) And was somehow classless. Enzo Ferrari had one. So did everyone else.
    After, they all copied.
    Now, most of the world’s cars are transverse engined FWD. That don’t surprise with their handling.
    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Morris_Mini-Minor_1959.jpg
    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Mini_cross_section.jpg
    The new ones are more Range Rover sized.
    http://s3.motoringfile.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/car_photo_369484_25.jpg
    http://s3.caradvice.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Mini-Monte-Carlo-1.jpg

  7. It would seem to me, an argument could be developed that the Ford Model T is the king of all “Category busters” . . .
    As the first and quintessential production automobile, it will always be the first and forever category king, representing a category that all these cars are a part of.
    We wouldn’t want to go back to a day when cars were handmade and only the playthings of the rich and famous, would we?

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