Hello, and welcome to today’s rant: Crossover.

They’re the vehicles that everyone wants.   At least I guess everyone wants them because you can’t get within two feet of any auto manufacturer (or their advertisements) without hearing that f’ing dirty word: crossover.

Why is it a dirty word?  Well, for starters, it’s grossly overused.  It’s like the new auto slang.  (Imagine Tommy Chong’s* voice here.) Hey man, dig our shiny new crossover!  It’s like, every car, all in one.  Yeah, man.  You know you want one.

Seriously.  The whole crossover concept is that well thought out.

Congratulations, now you can get a not-quite SUV that’s not going to hold quite as much, or go off-road quite as well.  But it still gets rock-bottom MPGs and looks like a__.   Or you know, any equally number of stupid combinations that make no sense to be categorized together.  It’s not a cross-over.  It’s a cross-dresser*!  It doesn’t know what it is!  And neither do we!

Hell, I’ve heard that small station wagons like the Pontiac Vibe and the Toyota Matrix are considered crossovers.  … Why?  (Let’s borrow Tommy Chong’s* voice again.) Because they’re not like full station wagons, man.  I mean look at them.  They’re tiny!

How many stupid “we don’t really know what to call it” cars are going to be categorized all together under this one dirty word: crossover?  How many does it take before the word “crossover” has absolutely no meaning whatsoever?  Why can’t we have more definitive categories like sub-SUV and mini-wagon?  And this new even dumber concept of crossing an SUV with a coup!  That’s not a crossover, that’s a station wagon!  (Or if small enough, a mini-wagon!)  It’s not an f’ing crossover!  It’s not an innovative new car design!  It’s been done to death!  You are not as bright as you think you are if you’re happy over thinking up that one!

The Crossover Vehicle - It’s a dirty word.   It’s a lazy excuse, not an actual vehicle category.  It’s a big cesspool of ineptitude in even bothering to tell consumers what it isn’t.  And in overusing it, it has become some new buzzword.  Everyone wants a crossover.  But no one defines what a crossover actually is.  So every crossover is some different Frankenstein’s monster*, but that makes each auto manufacturer happy because at least now they have their own monster in their pocket.  Some transgendered* crossdressing* monster* that just confuses everyone.

We, the consumer, demand better!  Grab your pitchforks and torches!  We will march upon their castles sales rooms and demand a more informative naming convention!

And the next time that you hear someone say the word “crossover”, slap them!  It’s a dirty word!

* Note: I have nothing against crossdressers, the transgendered, Tommy Chong, or Frankenstein’s monster. They’re all fine people in their own way, and we should consider ourselves lucky to live in a world where we have so much diversity and be glad that it takes all kinds.

** Note: That said, “crossover” is still a dirty word.