Word: jeep
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...that share some features with passenger cars. Many suburban housewives have fallen in love with minivans (estimated 1984 sales: 225,000), and thousands of yuppies are hooked on such off-the-road vehicles as the Chevrolet S-10 Blazer (sales so far this year: 130,727), the American Motors Jeep (79,807) and the Ford Bronco II (91,651). The fastest-moving truck of all is the small pickup. The nine different models of the compact carrier will have combined sales of 1.1 million this year, more than twice as many as in the record year...
...trucks are a breed apart from their clunky forerunners. They are easier to drive and more comfortable to ride in. Says Lynette Maker, a nurse in Burlington, Wis., of her new Cherokee Chief Jeep: "It has enough room for hauling and doesn't drive like a truck." The vehicles can also be purchased with air conditioning, power seats and expensive stereo equipment. Says Ed Rikess, owner of Southview Chevrolet in St. Paul: "The biggest option is the fanciest music system we can get." One out of four small pickups is sold with four-wheel drive, which provides greater traction...
Perhaps the only thing more faithful than the good old Army Jeep was its good old name, which seemed to capture the spunk of that sprightly warhorse. Now the Pentagon plans to change both with a sometimes klutzy replacement burdened by a certainly klutzy name: the High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV). The manufacturer, AM General Corp., calls it the Hummer. No way, says the Army: that rhymes with bummer. It prefers "the HummVee," hardly a name likely to catch on with the average grunt...
...bummer might have the inside track. The vehicle, which comes with power steering and automatic transmission and can perform a wide variety of tasks, costs $27,000, nearly twice as much as a Jeep. But its radiator sometimes leaks, its tires are less sturdy than hoped, and it is too heavy (7,500 lbs.) to be transported by helicopter as easily as the Jeep. According to one study, "It achieved an average of only 367 mean miles between mission failures, vs. a requirement of 1,300." Translation: it breaks down too often. Company President Lawrence Hyde argues, "Everything cited...
Rajiv Gandhi had been driving toward the last meeting of his campaign tour in West Bengal when a police Jeep intercepted his Mercedes to deliver a message: "There's been an accident in the house. Return immediately to Delhi." Instantly, Rajiv told his aides to rush to the nearest airport. At 12:30 p.m., while Rajiv waited for a helicopter to take him to Calcutta, he switched on his transistor radio to hear the BBC relay the news that his mother was in critical condition. Some of the Congressmen in his party burst into tears, but Rajiv told them...