13 of 33

No

Write now Article Tools

A "sports utility" vehicle is an oxymoron - a sort of pushmepullyou hybrid which achieves nothing.

I'm in no way anti-car - and I don't believe in this global warming scam being perpetrated by Gubmints around the world; the only thing green about that is the people who choose to believe in it. I love sports-cars - as an afficionado of Aston Martins and a long-time member of the Aston Martin Owners' Club, I'm not likely own potato-skin footwear. And I love the original Land-Rovers and Range-Rovers - but neither is properly a SUV even if the Range-Rover is thought of as the car that started it all.

So what constitutes a SUV? Perhaps the easiest to visualise is the Porsche Cayenne, partly because it comes from the redoubtable German sports-car ubergruppenfuhrers whose distant antecedent was the people-car envisaged by der Fuhrer himself. It even looks vaguely like the current incarnation of the company's mainstay of about 40 years from the front, even if it has been over-inflated to fit the SUV oeuvre. As a result, it's pig-ugly - and if cars are supposed to look like their owners, maybe they'd have been better advised to spend the money on some plastic surgery instead. It handles fairly respectably off-road, although it would probably be better to walk should you have to cross a muddy field. On road, well, it's okay, but still the high performance and the higher centre of gravity are uneasy bedfellows.

Then we have the Lamborghini LM002. Back in the days when Lamborghini produced outlandish sports-cars such as the Countach, Trattore Lamborghini produced this off-road monster. Priced at about the same level as the hideously expensive Countach, its high centre of gravity and big engine meant it could do things of which even the Countach was not capable. Think Hummer, but with much bigger balls.

The question is, though, why?

Yes, it's fun to hare about at the speed of sound over rough terrain. Then again, some people think its fun to carve the name of their favourite musician into their arm. Frankly, I recommend neither - neither are necessary, nor do they have much in their favour. In terms of the car - it is a vehicle built to be used both on the road as well as (in some cases) off it. Its high centre of gravity - a necessity if it is used off-road - makes it unstable for use on-road at higher speeds, unless it has (in the case of the Lamborghini), a wide track, which then makes it unsuitable for anything but the widest roads. Of course, some people relish the danger of toppling over as they zip through an S-bend at 90mph, but given that there are other road users who would rather not be crushed by a selfish lunatic high on adrenalin, that's rather beyond the pale.

If you want a sports-car, buy a sports-car. If you want an all-wheel-drive vehicle, buy something sensible like a Land-Rover. But if you want a SUV, buy yourself a moped, because that's all you can handle.

Learn more about this author, Tabitha Hergest.
Click here to send author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about Should we still be buying SUVs??
We want to hear your view. Write now!