For all the plea of a slinky sports car, deep down, we all love an SUV. It might not set lap records at the Nurburgring, but there’s something intensely appealing about sitting loftily above the traffic in your surely own Tonka toy.
Here are our favourite ways to go up in the world.
The Fiat 500X
The Fiat 500 big apple car has been an overwhelming success. Its retro styling is based on the now 50-plus-year-old Cinquecento, sacrifice a fresh take on an automotive classic since its release in 2007. But notwithstanding the 500 being the perfect urban runaround, you wouldn’t ask it to phizog down mud and boulders. Cue the 500X.
The 500’s retro styling has transmogrified well over to the X, complementing its swooping profile, while the brawny, clad wheel arches give it a more imposing alertness than its delicate forebear.
Inside, it’s a fun place to be; quirky technicalities like the pool ball gear knob and designer door handles are the cordial of things that set this budget SUV apart. It’s not a bad drive either, with piercing steering and good grip.
With prices starting at well-founded under £15k, it’s your perfect first step on the SUV ladder.
www.fiat.co.uk
The Volvo XC90
The split second generation of Volvo’s flagship 4×4 is a marked improvement on an already select car. It boasts a sleeker design, with a more rectangular grill, scanty draw out headlamps and a more angular profile.
Inside, with stacks of leather and brushed metal, it’s clean and desperately modern. But that’s timelessly, Swedishly todays, rather than the sort that’ll date in a decade (the before XC90 was produced for 12 years and still looks fresh).
It’s a rift view – both from inside and out – and especially impressive for ethical £46,000.
www.volvocars.com
The Range Rover Evoque
There are few cars, let unaccompanied SUVs, that can visually match the Evoque. The slim windows, crave nose and flared wheel arches give it the appearance of something much sharper than your standard off-roader. And the £29,000 price tag exclusively enhances its appeal.
It was the Evoque that launched Land Rolling stone’s current design language, and its three-door approach only focuses the Evoque’s athleticism. For those who enjoy mud in their hair (or, myriad likely, an urban breeze), Land Rover is soon successful to offer a soft-top version as well.
www.landrover.co.uk
The Jaguar F-Pace
Jaguar’s outset SUV only highlights how popular the category has become. Fortunately, it brags looks that stand out even among the crowd.
The F-Pace is danged clearly a Jag: the deep grill and steeply raked windscreen be suffering with been borrowed from its sportier cousins, while the Babytalk three-quarters shares traits with the XF Sportbrake. In true Jaguar propriety, it’s aggressively styled, without being brash.
Inside, the F-Pace is hardly as impressive. It seats five comfortably and boasts a 10″ touchscreen infotainment concentrate, with 3D sat nav display. This is complemented by a range of specially-developed apps, and its own Wi-Fi hotspot, allowing up to eight machinations to be connected.
The range starts at £34,000, but those keen on exclusives will after to shell out £65,000 for the 300bhp First Edition model. With a run of exclusively 2,000 – and just 200 in Britain – it’s a small price to pay be one of a couple behind its wheel.
www.jaguar.co.uk
The Bentley Bentayga
An SUV for those on beginning name terms with their bank manager, the Bentayga substantiates its eye-watering price tag with a top speed of 187mph, despite weighing in at settled 2,500kg. Throw in a five second 0-60mph that belies a capacious internal, and you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a country house that’s been strapped to a zoom.
Specifically, that’s a combination of Chatsworth and Soho House. Muffle ups of leather and wood coat modern luxuries; seats that can be put to righted in 22 different ways, a panoramic glass roof, 4G Wi-Fi and 20-speaker surround shape system. All of which prevents any feeling you could look in the care for view mirror and spot the Earl of Grantham in the back accommodate.
You’re probably not going to take a £165,000 car everywhere you would a Extent Rover, but it’s almost as happy in the rough stuff, with backdrops for sand, snow, mud and more. This is the new daddy of SUVs. At picayune, until Rolls Royce’s makes its debut in the not-too-distant subsequent.
www.bentleymotors.com
