The Fourth of July Parade didn’t happen this year in Pagosa Springs. Nor did we have the annual Carnival in Town Park. And the Car Show was cancelled.
But we still got a parade of sorts… a carnival of sorts… a car show of sorts… as droves of tourists arrived in their SUVs.
Pagosa Springs has its own local crop of SUVs, of course, although your typical home-grown resident much prefers a 30-year-old pickup truck, or a well-battered Subaru. If we see a Chevy Suburban in the City Market parking lot, we naturally assume it’s from Texas. Especially if it’s sporting Texas license plates. And taking up two parking spaces.
Some Daily Post readers may not realize that the Chevy Suburban is very close to becoming the “National Vehicle of Texas.”
Someone named “Chevrolet Suburban” has created a petition on Change.org proposing, first of all, that Texas is in fact a “Nation” and thus can have its own “National Vehicle”… and secondly, that the natural choice for that designation is the Chevy Suburban.
Suburbans have been rolling off the General Motors assembly line since 1934, making it the longest continuously used automobile nameplate in production. And it wouldn’t still be GM’s most profitable vehicle, to this very day, without financial support from the folks living in the Great State of Texas, according to the Change.org petitioners. (I believe they meant, “the Great Nation of Texas”).
Today, there are more than 200,000 Suburbans on the road in Texas and a Suburban is sold approximately every 90 minutes in the state. Additionally, Texas Chevrolet dealers account for five of the top 10 Chevrolet Suburban dealers in the U.S. In 2018, Texans bought more Suburbans than the smallest 25 states, combined!
As of yesterday, a total of 1,101 Texans had signed the Change.org petition. (I believe only Texans as allowed to sign.) The petitioners are hoping to reach 1,500 signatures, which would amount to 0.005 percent of the state’s population, and 0.75 percent of all Texan Suburban owners — clearly a sufficient number to make this designation “official”.
I don’t believe any other vehicle is even in the running. Can anyone really imagine a family of Texans riding in a Subaru? I mean… seriously?
Meanwhile, the Suburban’s fame extends far beyond Texas. In December 2019, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce unveiled a ‘Hollywood Walk of Fame‘ star for the Suburban, noting that the vehicle had performed in “1,750 films and TV shows since 1952.” (And this does not count the number of Suburbans that appeared as stunt doubles.)
Some of us here in Pagosa Springs may have mixed feelings about tourists, especially this summer. And we might have mixed feelings about their Chevy Suburbans as well.
It gives me peace of mind, however, knowing that I am giving up my parking spot to a movie star.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.