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May 16, 2023

10 Cars That Pioneered New Auto Segments

Discover the trailblazing vehicles that shaped new auto segments. Here are the ones that led the way in automotive innovation. What we know as the automobile today started off in 1885 with the Karl

Discover the trailblazing vehicles that shaped new auto segments. Here are the ones that led the way in automotive innovation.

What we know as the automobile today started off in 1885 with the Karl Benz Patent-Motorwagen. It didn't have a steering wheel, it had only three wheels and it could only go 9 mph. While people weren't immediately convinced, pretty soon, this whole automobile idea started to catch on, and it got countless other people to give it a try, resulting in all the cars that we have now.

Today, there are countless different kinds of cars to choose from in terms of body style, powertrain, seating capacity, and so on. While cars in general owe their existence to the Patent Motorwagen, certain automotive segments owe their existence to a handful of classic cars, or at the very least, soon-to-be classic cars that practically invented the genre.

An off-roading enthusiast favorite, the XJ Cherokee was one of the longest-lasting Jeep models with a production run spanning 18 years, with very little changes. Even though Jeep changed ownership three times throughout the XJ's production run, this comparatively small Jeep icon continued to offer both SUV and off-roader capabilities rolled into one neat package.

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One of the main innovations and unique features of the Cherokee was its construction. Back in 1983 when it first went into production, SUVs were still body-on-frame machines. However, the XJ Cherokee was built with a unibody construction, where the chassis and the body are one and the same. This technically makes it the first crossover SUV ever, with every new crossover SUV today using a unibody construction. It was also available with the 4.0-liter straight-six, one of the most durable powertrains to come out of America.

There's that famous tale of Ferruccio Lamborghini calling up Enzo Ferrari to complain that his sports car was broken, only for Ferrari to make fun of him and his tractor company. Livid, Ferruccio started his own sports car company with the sole aim to take on the best Ferrari had to offer. Also taking his surname, Automobili Lamborghini's first car was something completely groundbreaking: the Miura.

Enthusiasts who are into supercars especially have nothing but the utmost respect for the Miura. As well as the stunning design, which was otherworldly by late 1960s standards, the Miura pioneered one of the most important items in the history of automotive design and engineering: a mid-engine layout. With the sonorous V12 mounted in the rear middle, the Miura kickstarted the trend of supercars having their engine in the middle, with Ferrari following suit very soon after. The Miura is, and always will be an icon.

The Willys Jeep was what most people would consider the first proper off-road SUV, and it has a major contribution to the vehicle side of things during WWII. Pretty soon, automakers all over the world dabbled with the idea of a Jeep-like off-roader, but none enjoyed quite the same success as the original Series Land Rover.

Straight away, the Land Rover Series I was a pretty major breakthrough. For one thing, it was the first 4WD vehicle with doors and an optional roof that civilians could actually purchase. Roads in the UK weren't particularly good back in the late '40s and '50s, and as Richard Hammond once said, for a lot of people living in the rural parts of the UK, a Land Rover was the first car they had ever seen. What's more, because of post-war material shortages, the Series I Land Rover used an aluminum body.

There's a common misconception in the automotive world that the Ford Mustang was the inventor of the muscle car segment, but that's not the case. The Mustang did invent the pony car class, but not the muscle car class, as it didn't even offer a powerful V8 initially. The honor of inventing muscle cars has to be given to the Pontiac GTO.

It wasn't actually a separate model initially, like a lot of legendary American cars. It originally started as an upgrade package for the Pontiac Tempest, Pontiac's compact entry level car. While the GTO package was pretty unassuming on the outside, it was packing a honking 389 ci (6.4-liter) V8 putting out 325 hp with twin-barrel carburetors, or 345 with a tri-barrel setup, the Tempest GTO gave birth to the idea of sticking big engines in small cars. That resulted in the GTO becoming an icon, and for all other American automakers joining the party.

For the better part of the 20th century, the French were busy making some truly innovative cars. We all know of the Citroën 2CV and its car-for-the-masses ethos, and other Citroëns and their hydropneumatic suspension, but no one seems to mention the other major innovator to come out of the French car industry: the Renault 4, or 4L.

The Quatrelle, similarly to the 2CV, enjoyed a very long life, with a production run spanning over 30 years. It, too, was all about four-wheeled transportation for the masses, but the Renault pioneered something that would become a huge thing in the industry, and yet no one seems to mention it: the hatchback body style. The Renault 4 was the first production car to feature what we know today as a hatchback, with a single rear door hinged at the roof.

If you want to carry more than four or five people in a car today, the options are basically limitless. Whether it would be a three-row SUV or a minivan, the choice is pretty much endless. However, 40 years ago, that wasn't really the case. If you were in the States, you had to settle for a giant lumbering station wagon, and if you were in Europe, you were basically out of luck.

That was until Renault came along in 1984 with the original Espace. It was based on a car, and it was only a little wider and longer than some cars, but it was way taller. This increase in dimensions meant the Espace could seat seven people comfortably, as well as have plenty of space for their cargo. It wasn't particularly good to drive, and early sales figures were appalling, but nowadays, it's a runaway success. Even though the Espace has undergone an unfortunate transformation into an SUV, the original Espace did the same for Europe as the Chrysler Voyager did for North America: it invented the minivan.

We kept hearing countless stories 15 years ago that electric cars will catch on and that we will be driving electric cars in the future. Pretty much everyone was skeptical, until the Tesla Model S happened. The Californian outlet run by Elon Musk released the Model S in 2012, and it totally changed the way that both people, and the rest of the industry perceive electric cars.

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From the massive focus on technology, to the impressive power outputs, to the surprising range figure, the Tesla Model S cracked the code on EVs, and its success combined with a certain emission scandal you may have heard about, the entire industry followed suit. The Model S is still available today, and even if you have (justified) reservations about Tesla, you can't argue about the Model S' significance. It even broke the Porsche Taycan's Nurburgring lap record.

Just about every potential new car buyer has been told the same thing: go hybrid if a fully electric car isn't your thing. Hybrid cars are all over the place nowadays, and just about every automaker has at least one hybrid on offer. This one is perhaps the most well-known, but hybrid cars got started with the original Toyota Prius.

One of the world's most hated cars started out in 1997, but it didn't arrive in global markets until the year 2000. The element that made the Prius stand out from every other car was the hybrid powertrain. This improved gas mileage significantly and cleaned up the emissions. While the Prius still doesn't have the absolute best reputation, and that's despite the new generation looking desirable, the impact it's had on the automotive world is definitely not something you could hate.

Up until the 1990s, SUVs were all giant, lumbering vehicles that were pretty much designed to go off-road and not do much else besides that. Over in Japan, a new idea was being looked at: SUVs that have some off-roading capability, but they're mostly focused on being good on the road. The pioneer of this newfangled segment, which quickly received the name "soft-roader" was the Toyota RAV4.

RELATED: 1995-2000 Toyota RAV4: Costs, Facts, And Figures

The abbreviation stood for Recreational Active Vehicle with 4WD, and that's indeed what the RAV4 was all about. A small four-cylinder engine, and a platform that combined elements of Toyota's regular cars. It could still off-road if you wanted to, thanks to 4WD and an optional locking diff, but it was primarily for use on the road, where it was excellent at what it did. Considering that pretty much every SUV these days follows the same rulebook, the darling-of-SUVs RAV4 deserves more credit than most people give it.

Plenty of discussions are thrown around as to which is the original hot hatchback. Some say it's the Simca 1100 Ti, which it technically is, as it pre-dates the original VW Golf GTI by just a little bit. However, the Mk1 Golf GTI is still the original hot hatchback, as not only was it more powerful than the Simca, but it also brought hot hatchbacks into the mainstream.

The idea was simple: it's a perfectly ordinary looking Golf on the outside, but it packs a punch under the hood, ensuring you have the benefits of both a Golf, and a fast car. The 1.6-liter fuel-injected four-cylinder put out 108 hp, later 110 hp, which went to the front wheels through either a four-speed, or a five-speed manual transmission. This idea caught on pretty much immediately, and tons of other automakers hopped on the bandwagon with their own take on the hot hatch formula.

Marko has been part of the HotCars team since July 2020. He started out writing for various sites on a variety of topics. He prefers weird, unusual cars to luxobarges and sports cars.