the first suv was made by chev in 1973. they produced 3 of them. they included built in tv, ice box, 8 track, 4 captains chairs by bostrom, the panels above the seat each had a jack for plugging in headphones and a switch so that each passanger could dial the radio, the tv and or the tv audio, and each had a small light. the panels were copies of what you have overhead on an aircraft. there were two air conditioners it had two fuel tanks that had a total capacity of 45 gallons. the engine had no smog device and it could pull my boat up the hill from indio to the high desert on cruise control and didn't even know the boat was attached.
the driver had a control that could override everything, so if someone fell asleep with the light on, the driver could turn it off from his seat.
behind the captains was a bench seat that converted to a bed. it was a conversion from a one ton cargo van,
they were called versivans.
when we stopped camping about 15 yeas ago, i stripped it and paneled and carpeted it and used it as a cargo van. it would hol, with the doors closed all the paneling you could need and we once carried 20 bags of readymix, all stacked at the rear, with no sway.
after the 3 were made and sent to a dealer in calif to sell for $8,000, the gas crunch hit and no one wanted these 10 mpg monsters.
i bought mine from a friend after he had it 3 years and kept it until 2 years ago, when my neighbors wife, drunk at 8:00 am totaled it while it was parked in front of my house.
the rest of the neighbors cried because everyone used it to pick up stuff.
