Page 29 - Motor Trend (May 2020)

COVER STORY

3-ROW SUVs
SUBARU
ASCENT

HYUNDAI
PALISADE MAZDA
CX-9

FORD From rugged designs to modern
EXPLORER lines, today’s three-row SUVs bring
styles to suit divergent preferences
for a broad range of families.

driving from Mexico City to Acapulco and at the top of my parents’ list of must-have have been discontinued. And in the
Cuernavaca. We’d drive from Houston to transportation features. SUVs were for past three years, new names like Atlas,
Mexico City during the summers, went to off-roading, not the road trip or morning Ascent, Telluride, and Palisade have
New Mexico for a ski trip, and visited all of school run. joined the hyper-competitive three-row
Texas’ major cities several times. Fast-forward to today, and the automo- SUV segment.
A big family like ours needed a vehicle tive consumer scene could not be more What caused the shift? Consumers’
with plenty of space for six and their gear, different. Americans have largely ditched preferences have changed. Features
and back then, a minivan was the only minivans for three-row SUVs. In the past like all-wheel drive are now seen as
option. Space, safety, and reliability were decade and a half, about a dozen minivans essential. Gone are the choppy driving

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