The Ford Flex seats seven and has SUV good looks, but it's built on on a car frame. (Ford)
DETROIT -- Suburban mom Shana Rampersad is looking for a new family car, and it has to be fuel-efficient, stylish and roomy.
On the top of her list is a crossover, a type of vehicle that's built like a car but looks like a downsized SUV. They offer more storage space than traditional cars and use less gas than SUVs, which are built on truck frames. And they're a good fit for families like the Rampersads, who are tightening their belts but still want enough space to haul around children, pets, luggage and sporting gear.
Crossover boom
- Ford is stepping up production of the Escape, one of its three crossovers. It was among the top 10 vehicles purchased under the "cash for clunkers" program.
- Honda plans to introduce a new crossover vehicle this fall, the CrossTour, offering a slightly larger option to its popular CR-V. The CR-V, which gets 23.5 mpg, captured the largest share of the crossover market in August.
- General Motors says its new vehicle lineup would include only cars and crossovers over the next several years. Sales of its Chevrolet Equinox crossover, which gets an average of 27 mpg, rose nearly 189 percent in August from July.
Crossovers -- including the Ford Flex, Chevrolet Equinox, Nissan Murano and top-selling Honda CR-V -- are now among the fastest-growing segments in the auto industry. Their share of the U.S. market has nearly tripled since 2002.
Rampersad and her husband are considering the Ford Flex, a four-door that seats seven. Its rectangular design has softened angles and blends the low length of a minivan with the sportier front end of an SUV. Its second and third rows fold down flat, creating enough room for two adults to camp out.
"We can't get the strollers, an overnight bag and a couple of other things into a passenger car," says Rampersad, 34. "We looked at a couple of SUVs, but they were horrible on gas. Living in New Jersey, you're driving everywhere."
The growth of crossovers points to the end of supersized family rides. "When I was a kid, it was the station wagon. When I had children, it was the minivan. In the '90s it was the SUV, and now it's the crossover," says George Pipas, Ford's top sales analyst.
Earlier this decade, when gas was cheaper and bank accounts flusher, beefy SUVs and minivans emerged as the preferred family vehicle. Between 1999 and 2006, their combined sales made up the largest segment of the auto market, peaking at 27.8 percent market share in 2000.
Now, sales of those bigger vehicles are being displaced by crossovers.
The Chevrolet Equinox is a top-selling crossover. (General Motors)
Crossovers made up 21.7 percent of all U.S. vehicle sales for the first eight months of the year, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank, up from 7.4 percent in 2002. They're the second-best sellers, behind midsize cars.
"We'll see [crossovers] capturing a larger part of the industry going forward," says Jeff Schuster, executive director of forecasting for J.D. Power & Associates.
But Rampersad doesn't have to parse data to know that crossovers are becoming the vehicle of choice for families. She just looks around her suburban neighborhood.
"Everyone's driving a crossover; you don't really see many minivans," she says. "They're not the cool car for moms to drive anymore."
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