Overbuilt cars — we all love them. There's just something incredibly satisfying about having a car that you know will absolutely go the distance and take whatever you can throw at it. There are plenty of types of cars over the years that have been overbuilt, but perhaps none have been more than old-school SUVs. The first generations of SUVs to go on sale have almost universally become gold standards for the top level of rugged survivability. Perhaps surprisingly, quite a few of those super-tough, super-overbuilt cars also came from the big Detroit manufacturers!One of those Detroit-designed monsters has gone on to become known as a true survivor. If you know your American cars, you may already know what it is. If you don't know so much about American cars, then prepare to be a bit surprised! Few Family Vehicles Were Built This Overengineered Bring a TrailerGetting into the '90s, there were a lot of choices out there if you wanted a family SUV. Plenty of them were quite reliable, too. The Ford Explorer and its Mercury Mountaineer sibling proved themselves to be tough, dependable family transports. The Toyota RAV4, Toyota 4Runner, and Lincoln Navigator all did too, as well as the Jeep Cherokee and Grand Cherokee. They were all incredibly solid. But, you wouldn't really call any of these overbuilt. Even with the Toyotas, it was expected that they'd be able to last forever (to a point). The car we're about to discuss, however, has lasted in a way nobody would have ever expected. The Eighth-Generation Chevrolet Suburban Is An Overbuilt Family Hauler via Bring A TrailerIf you think of a proper, old-school American family car, this is likely the car you're going to picture in your head. The eighth-generation Chevrolet Suburban was sold from 1992-1999 in North America (you'll find out why "in North America" is specifically important in just a bit). It's a big, old-school SUV based on the General Motors GMT400 platform. It came in two different weights (the Suburban 1500 and the Suburban 2500), and it was pretty much exclusively powered by petrol V8s. The 1500 models only got a 5.7-liter V8, while the 2500s got the option of a 7.4-liter V8. The 5.7 and 7.4-liter V8s were based on older GM V8 designs (the 5.7 was the L05 small-block, while the 7.4 was the L19 big-block) until the Suburban was facelifted for 1996. After that, both the 5.7 and the 7.4 were variants of the newer LS-derived Vortec engines.The GMT400 platform this version of the Suburban was based on was really designed for pickup trucks. It was the basis of the now highly-desirable C/K "square body" series of trucks. As a result, this car is massively overbuilt. While it may be a big family SUV in many ways, it's still got a lot of the components and engineering required for a proper workhorse vehicle. That means you can tow big loads with it and carry a huge amount of weight in the back, as well as using it to transport your family around in comfort. It also, crucially, means that this SUV is incredibly reliable. How reliable? Well, you'll find that out later... It Was Also Sold In Australia The Chevrolet Suburban may be typically viewed as an all-American creation that you could only get in North America. That was mostly true. It was too big and too thirsty on fuel to really be sold in most other places. But, there was one other big car market out there that General Motors thought would take to the Suburban in the same way that Americans did. That was Australia, another country where big V8s reigned supreme for a long time. To adapt the Suburban for Australia, GM barely changed anything. They just converted it to right-hand drive, made sure it had metric gauges since Australia uses the metric system, and swapped the Chevy badges out for Holden ones. It wasn't even given an Australian-specific name—it was just called the Holden Suburban!Interestingly, the GMT400-based Suburban lasted longer in Australia than it did in North America. While North American Suburbans switched over to the GMT800 platform after 1999, the Holden Suburbans were sold until 2001. That odd quirk briefly kept the GMT400 Suburbans alive, in one market, for just a couple of years! The Suburban Nameplate Has Been Around Longer Than Nearly Anything Else via Bring A TrailerMost people may view the Chevrolet Suburban as the big, modern SUV it's been for the last few decades. But, the Suburban name can trace its origins much further back than that. The first car to bear the Suburban nameplate was the Caryall Suburban. This car was based on the Chevrolet Master platform, and was introduced all the way back in 1935. That means it's outlived several other historic nameplates, including the Chevrolet Corvette, Volkswagen Beetle and Morgan 4/4! It's Pretty Much Guaranteed To Last Forever via Bring A TrailerYou might typically think of a Toyota Land Cruiser or a Lexus LX if you picture a big SUV that's so overbuilt it'll last forever. While that is true for those Japanese-built workhorses, it's also true for these GMT400-based Chevrolet Suburbans. Anyone who's ever owned one will tell you how tough they are, and how few worries they'll give you in the reliability department. It's not unknown for eighth-generation Suburbans to reach huge milestones. It's almost normal for them to get to over 250,000 miles, and plenty go over the 300,000-mile mark. There's even one example of a 1994 Suburban that reached a million miles! That easily makes it one of the most reliable SUVs ever made. Several Other GM Models Use The Same Platform Bring a TrailerAs you'll no doubt already know, the GMT400 platform was used to underpin a whole variety of GM vehicles. As well as those square body trucks, that includes the first-generation Chevrolet Tahoe, the first-generation GMC Yukon, the first-generation Cadillac Escalade and the third-generation Chevrolet Blazer. All these cars share many of the same mechanical components as the eighth-generation Suburban. As a result, they're pretty much guaranteed to be just as reliable! The Suburban Is Still One Of America's Most Reliable Cars via ChevroletWith some traditionally overbuilt cars, their reputation for reliability has gone away once they've moved on to newer platforms. That hasn't been the case at all for the Chevrolet Suburban. Even Suburbans you can buy brand new in your local Chevrolet dealer are known to have better reliability than almost every other large SUV on the market. Just last year, it was revealed that the current-generation Suburban is the most likely SUV you can buy today to surpass the 250,000 mile mark. The Eighth-Generation Suburban Is Still Cheap via Bring A TrailerWith how desirable the GMT400-based trucks have become, you'd expect the old-school SUV charm of the eighth-generation Chevrolet Suburban to follow in that trend. That hasn't happened quite yet. Thankfully for those of us who want them, these Suburbans are still relatively cheap on the used market! The average used value for an eighth-generation Suburban is currently $14,965, and values don't seem to be skyrocketing. One of the most recent examples to sell on the higher end of prices was a 1999 Suburban LT, which sold for $30,000.Judging from that average used value and from how much that immaculate, low-mileage example sold for, it might be a good idea to grab hold of one now. Prices may be low now, but they likely won't be for long. This once common-or-garden overbuilt family hauler could very well become one of the hottest investments in the classic SUV world!Sources: Bring A Trailer, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Classic.com, GMC, Reddit (r/GMT400), YouTube (@InWheelTime)