Eric Peters assigns blame for the demise of the American sedan. He's right. You could get 9 (actually -- 10) people in a station wagon. I know this, because my 7 brothers and sisters and I fit along with Mom and Dad in a Kingswood Estate, at least for long enough to get to church and back.
So, what is a CUV except a bumped up sedan? Most of us boomers require more room than we had back then, but the idea was that a people mover could be fashioned from a sedan, which by the way already had enough trunk room for 6 suitcases.
That need hasn't totally gone away, but it is served by "light trucks" now, some believe to get around fuel economy rules.
Just as it was in those days, the people movers of today are fashioned from a car chassis. It's clearly a high roof version of the sedan. The fuel economy of the CUV is not materially different from the sedan version, either, so there isn't a big incentive to buy the low roof version.
Soccer moms still need their mini-vans, but the car of the present is no longer a "car". It's a "light truck". Not much different from the station wagon, in concept or execution.
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