MISUSE OF THE TERMS 'SUV' AND 'JEEP'
The Hyundai Jeep you can never have I was moved to write this article after reading a report on a popular Nigerian news website about a Nigerian lawmaker who bought an alleged faulty Hyundai ix35 for his wife. The report can be read here http://saharareporters.com/news-page/nation-represented-idiots-nigerian-house-reps-summon-hyundai-motors-over-faulty-n41m-car-b . Throughout the report, he kept referring to the vehicle as ‘Hyundai ix35 Jeep’. And that brought my attention to how wide spread and common it is for a Nigerian to refer to any car in the SUV class as a ‘Jeep’. You can hear someone say my friend just bought a jeep, only to discover well you see the vehicle that is is actually a Toyota highlander . It got me thinking what the source of this common misuse was. That took my mind back to the colonial and early post colonial days when the most common trucks on Nigerian roads (mostly among military personnel) were the Willys Jeep and early Land Rover models....