Are SUVs The End of the World For Car Enthusiasts?? #blogpost

22 Mar 2016

Like it or not Crossovers are more popular than ever, in fact SUV is the fastest growing car segment right now. So no surprise every major car manufacturer wants to get a piece of it. Now here is where I want to make my point, since SUVs are so popular car makers invest more money on these than they do in other segments and what we get is a market crowd of boring crossovers.

As Petrol Heads Should We Be Worried??

We love Hot Hatches, affordable sport cars and powerful coupes, right? But these ain’t the most profitable products for automakers unlike SUVs. Take Mitsubishi for example they axed the Lancer in order to introduce a range of SUVs with the EVO badge, Rumor has it that Nissan will turn the next generation Z into a crossover, Peugeot killed the RCZ last year and Porsche’s best selling car isn’t the 911, is the Macan SUV. Now can you see where I’m going?

Will SUV replace Sport Cars??

Maybe I’m exaggerating a bit but only time will tell, You see Mitsubishi can give us an ultra fuel efficient hybrid SUV with 600hp but it won’t never be the same without the Lancer, at least for me. Since car industry is a massive business carmakers find ways to make more money and SUVs are the answer; so they may not replace sports cars directly but because of profitability stuff this segment is shrinking.

Should We Hate SUV??

Not at all, at the end of the day they still cars and there are several reasons people buy them instead of compact cars or sedans. Now the question is: As a car guy can we like SUVs? I’d like to talk about 2 important aspects for us: Style and Performance.

Style

We love to modify our cars, not only the engine but the exterior too; and since these cars are so popular they must look good in order to attract people right?

Well let’s leave the Aztek apart and look at the CX5 and the Tucson for example;
These two are my favourites SUVs, Why? Because they don’t look boring or dull like a family car. They look good and are stylish I’d dare to say they even look sporty.

Performance

Even more important than looks is performance, now a days there are many “Performance focused” SUVs on the market. And that’s good because car makers still think of us; car enthusiasts.
We have for all tastes: Hot SUV: Nissan Juke Nismo RS (215 HP), Kia Sportage SX (260 HP) or Super SUV; Land Rover Range Rover Sport (550 HP), Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT (475HP).
They may have some downsides against proper sports cars thou (like weight, ride height, center of gravity) but if you choose wisely they are fun to drive too.

Don’t get me wrong I don’t hate SUVs what I don’t like is the way the car manufacturers are going in order to sell more cars, They are forgetting about making cars with personality and character, cars which were not designed to satisfy commuters but to put a smile on car enthusiasts.

Now guys I’d like to know what’s your opinion about it.

Comments

Do you know? The T30 xtrail come with a GT model which got a SR20DET and AWD. Basically a bigger silvia

Cool thinking bro we should have to worry last year india victims dozens of suv

My favourite SUV is the Lexus lx570 Supercharged but they are rare.

The Hummer H1 and the Range Rover is the only SUVs I want. Others? Nah.

I rather don’t like SUVs. They look good but it seems to me that they are mainly popular among non-car guys who don’t care about driving at all and they just want a vehicle which looks cool and expensive (something like…Prius). Yeah, there are performance focused SUVs, but why would you buy an SUV if you wanted something fast and fun to drive in the first place? That’s also why I don’t really like the CX-5 and Tucson in the pictures: SUVs are supposed to deal at least with curbs or some poor quality roads, then what’s the point of lowering them?

However, that’s just my opinion, I don’t really have my own experience with SUVs and I uderstand they can be a good choice for a family, old people or someone living in mountains, etc…I simply don’t like the fact that most people buy them in order to be “cool”.

By the way, it’s not like Porsche is replacing 911 with Macan. In fact, Porsche would be probably not able to produce 911 if they didn’t produce SUVs.

Yeah, I agree with you. But there are car guys with big family so they need a big car as result of that. And that’s where a BMW X5M would make sense I think.
No I never said Macan would replace the 911, in fact thanks to the Macan; Porsche is still able to produce the 911 for more years. What I said is that the Macan is so popular that it sold out faster than the rest of Porsches.

the only suv’s i like are toyota lancruiser hj60, hummer h1, g class from the 80’s, chevy’s from 80’s, dodge from 70’s and nissans from 80’s. reason is: look at the ground clearence. before and even nowadays you did not need more than like 120 hp to become cool. you could even do it with 90hp and still become the king of the highway. but what im saying is that the groundclearence is just wayy too low for an suv in modern society. it is like a corolla mixed with landcruiser and boom you have the rav4. theyre tasteless, nowadays. the old were strong, high enough to drive accross a river and have a very good time travelling with it. thats why my favorite car is alway the HJ60 landcruiser. it is the first car i drove with, having a 4 litre diesel straight six screaming in front of me. good times. my dad sold it since our trailer was too low so he bough a 90’s hilux, and i was very dissapointed my the engineering of that.

I wouldn’t consider the ones you listed as SUVs. I would put them in the actual 4WD category. SUVs are the ones you don’t want to, or couldn’t really take off toad.

In my area there are very many suvs, a bit too many. The owners claim that they have to have them for offroading when they are heading to their cabin etc. Which could be true, but have you seen all the offroad mercs in London with absolutely no mud on them at all. Which is kind of stupid since they are made (arguable) for that.

The older SUVs that were focused on Off-road capability are great. These new ones that can’t even leave the pavement, though, are a completely different story