Carmakers with surprise SUVs
SUVs are everywhere nowadays. looks at manufacturers which finally jumped on the bandwagon.
The SUV is the car-type of choice these days. But oddly enough, it’s a trend that has now spread across almost every single segment.
This has led to quite a few SUVs dropping from manufacturers we would never have expected to produce such a vehicle.
Here are some from SUV-history that surprised us all – and a few that were completely predictable but took forever to appear.
Honda
While we’re used to the idea of a Honda SUV these days, back when it created its first one – the CR-V in 1995 – Honda was far better known for its screaming VTEC engines, fun and a world-changing supercar. This made the idea of a Honda SUV an alien concept that would best have been described as abhorrent. Except that the CR-V wasn’t quite Honda’s first SUV.
While it was the first SUV the company designed and engineered, Honda’s Crossroad, Jazz (yes, really) and Passport actually beat CR-V to the SUV punch two years earlier. All were released in 1993. The Crossroad was a rebadged Land Rover Discovery for the Japanese domestic market (some made it to New Zealand as used imports), while the Jazz was a rebadged Isuzu MU three-door, also for the domestic market.
The five-door MU was badged as a Honda Passport for the US.
So the CR-V shouldn’t have really been all that shocking. Although it did herald Honda’s descent into dullness.
Porsche
No one saw this coming, and, boy, did it upset the purists! But seriously, who would have thought that a company famous for building some of the best sports cars to ever grace the planet would decide to have a crack at a lumbering SUV?
To be fair, the Cayenne was anything but lumbering. Ugly, yes, but lumbering? Not a chance. Not only is the Cayenne rather special to drive, it also saved the company, which was deep in the red when the brave decision to develop and build the Cayenne was made.
So not only did no one expect it, but Porsche also anticipated the boom in popularity of the oxymoronic concept of the ‘performance SUV’.
BMW
BMW long had a reputation for fine, sporting sedans, which seemed like a perfectly good niche to occupy. It really didn’t need an SUV. After all, even its equally fine performance wagons barely sold in comparison to its sedans.
However, something that would theoretically remove any need for BMW to build an SUV... was what actually started the ball rolling on the X5. That thing was BMW buying Land Rover in 1994. While logic may have suggested that Land Rover and Range Rover could nicely make up BMW’s SUV portfolio, German logic suggested otherwise.
That German logic soon made sense when it became apparent that the X5 was a very sporty SUV with very road-oriented handling. It almost certainly triggered development of the even sportier Porsche Cayenne when it appeared.
Jaguar
Just because everyone else is doing it didn’t mean Jaguar needed to. But it did (eventually) with the new F-Pace. An SUV really is at odds with the company’s image of graceful, sleek, sporting cars. But what about that other image? The one it has been trying to shake off – that of being an old person’s car, the retired bank manager’s vehicle of choice? Well, that actually works with an SUV.
Whatever you think about its place in Jaguar’s illustrious history, the F-Pace is stunning looking, incredibly swift, and in supercharged form sounds like a racing car. So that makes it okay.
Alfa Romeo
While few people ever expected Alfa Romeo to build an SUV, it actually had little to do with its long history of building exciting and completely sexy sporty cars with brilliant engines and concerning electrics.
No, the big surprise about Alfa building an SUV is the fact that it is still alive in these SUV-tastic days. Since the end of its glory days, that stretched from before WWI up until somewhere around the end of the 1960s, Alfa has teetered constantly on the edge of financial ruin. Even when Fiat absorbed it in 1986, the future was far from secure.
Things have been much more stable lately, thanks to Fiat finally pulling the plug on Lancia as an international brand (it only sells a single model in Italy) and developing future Alfa models off Maserati platforms. The appearance of the sexy new Stelvio SUV alongside the equally sexy Giulia sedan should bring even more success.
Bentley and Rolls-Royce
These two making SUVs actually makes perfect sense. We just wonder why they held off for so long. Both brands are all about luxury, space and sheer intimidating presence. What vehicle (other than a Bentley or a Rolls, that is) does that better than a thoroughly massive SUV?
Maserati
As soon as Porsche produced the Cayenne, anyone playing in the same segment had to have a competitor.
So it was only a matter of time (admittedly quite a lot of it) before Maserati fired off what would become the Levante, to take on the Cayenne. The sister Alfa Stelvio, of course, will tackle the Macan.
Lamborghini
Apart from the fact that the brilliantly mental Urus is so utterly a Lamborghini first, it is hard to consider it an SUV.
It’s more of a slightly high-riding four-door sports hatch that only seats four.
But that’s not what makes this Lamborghini ‘SUV’ totally unsurprising. It’s the fact that Lamborghini is still the only supercar manufacturer to build an extreme super-SUV previously – the brilliantly bonkers LM002 from 1986.
The Urus isn’t surprising. It was inevitable!