First Drive: 2010 GMC Terrain

this car is hideous. another swing and a miss for GMC. they are trying to say "truck" with a "crossover"? well i've got news for you, first of all, there is no such thing as a crossover. crossover is just a new name for SUV, because the term SUV has lost its luster. second, if this thing is bigger than any other car in the "crossover" segment (and it is), then it should not be allowed to even carry the obviously bulls--t moniker. third, the lines on this car don't say truck, SUV, or crossover, they say "my design crew had too many chiefs and not enough indians, and now i don't know what i'm supposed to be, but i sure am ugly". now allow me a correction, when i said this car is bigger than any other car in the crossover segment, i was wrong, because for some reason GM is calling the acadia, and the traverse, crossovers. what? hardly. simply because they are unibody jumbo hatchbacks, does not make them crossovers. i've also noticed that suzuki is calling their sx4 a crossover. let's just get down to it, people, if it has two doors and a trunk, its a coupe. if its got 4 doors and a trunk, its a sedan. if it's got any number of doors, a hatchback, and the average driver can see clear over the roof while standing on solid ground, it's hatchback, or a wagon. if it is same as the before mentioned, but the average person cannot see over the top, unibody, or body on frame does not matter, it is an SUV. and if it's got a bed, it's a truck. stop with the "sportback" (a car with a nicely raked rear window is called a "fastback" and it should have 2 doors, otherwise all it is is a goofy little wagon. so stop trying to twist our nostalgic buyers impulse), "cross tourer"/"sport tourer" (touring is for vehicles with 2 wheels), "SUT", "crossover" segments. as for GMC? until they prove that they can make a decent vehicle in any segment, they should be limited to the phraseology, "this is GMC's newest thing that we make. feel free to begin forgetting that it ever existed as soon as possible".

dnoodles,

that's deep man. This thing is no doubt ugly, few people will disagree. I just don't understand why make a twin of the Equinox and wrap it in ugly sheetmetal? Why is this a good business strategy?

dnoodles

I agree with the basis of your arguement, marketing terms are an annoying way to try to disguise what a vehicle really is.

I think crossover is a real class of car these days though.

SUV's came about as wagon bodies on a truck chassis. They were built to carry more people then a pick up but still have the go anywhere ability and towing capacity.

Since most people starting buying them for the "look", automakers started putting SUV styled bodies on car and minivan platforms to make the average city dweller more comfortable while still giving them the illusion they were rugged.

The question is what do you call these transgendered vehicles?

They aren't cars or minivans because they don't look like them. They aren't SUV's because they lack the abilites that defined an SUV.

I think crossover is the perfect term for this new generation of whatevers.

This has a more masculine, H3-like look. I wasn't impressed at first but I like it more now. It will appeal to those who aren't crazy about the concept of a soft roading crossover. This has a manly look to it. can't say the same about any of the Japanese crossovers, especially not the CR-V.

I still see absolutely no reason to have both this and the Equinox, but both are fine vehicles so I guess it doesn't matter too much.

Nobody cannibalizes sales like GM. Nobody.

@dnoodles
I have to agree with firstwagon. A crossover is defined as any car based vehicle borrowing its features from an SUV. So technically anything from a Subaru Forester to a Buick Enclave meets the definition of a crossover.

firstwagon, i am nothing if not a fan of good debate.

i definitely considered that, in the traditional sense, an SUV is a closed cargo, body on frame, 4x4 or AWD "car" (read: truck). which technically leaves an empty slot where every new "SUV" seems to fall these days (unibody). so i will concede your point, there.

i too am a bit of a traditionalist, in that i like "real" SUVs, given that they are built on a truck suspension, have a real tailgate, and the S in SUV refers to off-roading/rally racing, not soccer practice.

therefore, if we are going to allow the label "crossover", albeit for derogatory use toward those who consider their super sized hatchbacks to be SUVs, then i must ask for one thing in return from the car companies.

can we please return the production focus to paths more befitting of the segments in question? it seems that as more cars are becoming crossovers, sportbacks, and tourers, we are losing the joy of each particular kind of car. more and more, new cars (whatever the genre) are expected to pack like a suburban, seat like a minivan, coddle like a benz, sip like a prius, haul like an F150, and handle like a lancer. they are not being judged on appropriate criteria, but rather on how universally marketable the car is.

there are still people out there who don't care that their '89 4runner in no way feels like floating on a cloud, or that their '94 suburban burns a gallon of gas every time you think about driving somewhere and the interior makes indoor/outdoor carpeting look fancy, or that their '05 prius drives like a gokart in jell-o.

too often a car becomes popular for its own reasons, and the masses catch on to it, and the segment gets watered down. take the wrangler. it became very popular with people who liked outdoor and extreme sports, then everyone had to have one, but as it turns out, every daddy's little princess, and white collar cubicle jockey doesn't like driving around town on knobby tires in an open top car the size of a shoe box, and so now we have cars like the compass, directing focus toward a comfortable around town ride for all those 99% angel 1% devils out there.

the people who suffer, are those of us who miss when cars were engineered to be what they were intended to be. the people who enjoyed playing in their real SUVs, or really beating the hell out of their pick-ups, or actually utilized their station wagons without worrying about scuffing the high gloss luxury european interior (sorry, subaru, all your cars have drifted into crossover territory), the people who didn't care about comfortably seating 4 passengers in their sport coupe.

while cars like the terrain clearly indicate that us SUV and wagon lovers have been given the final middle finger by corporate auto, i fear the next to go will be we who also appreciate efficient cars. as high performance and cutting edge modern luxury will never take a back seat in the mind of the consumer, efficiency numbers will not leap forward, but will crawl ahead, until, perhaps, they plateau, or even turn back.

it's not about satisfying a demographic, it's about moving the most product. sadly, selling 50k units to elated and loving customers will never sound as good as the ka-ching of selling 1mill units to a bunch of consumers who just don't care.

welcome to the show, GMC terrain.

"Nobody cannibalizes sales like GM. Nobody."

Is that why GMC can't manage to sell any vehicles? If people didn't go for the same vehicles with different styling the TL and ES350 wouldn't sell.

I think it looks good.