Despite the fact that SUV are PC pariahs in The Land of Hope and Glory, despite the fact that unleaded costs $8.74 per gallon, SUV sales are up 11 percent on the year. Londoners are buying up SUVs faster than any other municipality. As London's roads haven't reverted to potholes and cobblestones, there must be some other way to logically explain this trend-defying headline. Are the expat Russian billionaires beefing-up their security entourages? Are conservatives celebrating the demise of Ken Livingstone and his $50/day C-charge plan? Is Clarkson on a Landie kick? Why is Old Blighty leading the Charge of the Light Truck Brigade while we here In The Land of the Free run for our Priora at first sign of $4 gas? Whatever the reason keep in mind that Britons consider things like the Daihatsu Terios an "SUV"– even though it sports a 1.5-liter engine and gets a combined 35mpg. Um, not that there's anything wrong with that…
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Actually, the Daihatsu Terios – perhaps rebadged as the Scion x? – would be the perfect “SUV” for these times.
Yes, they actually have Small SUV’s in Europe. The idea of an SUV with 4 cylinders is absurd by US standards. Let alone one with less than 2.0 liters of displacement
I want a Suzuki Jimny.
Well, last time I was in France, I was quite a few more SUVs, generally in…the suburbs or the “new” nice neighborhoods.
I take it as the “bling’bling nouveau riche” attitude coming over to Europe.
BTW, they’re still very much frowned upon by most, in a country where trunk badges are rare (i.e. even if you have a big engine in your car, you don’t want to advertise it)
OMG! The free market is working. Obviously taxes must be raised further/targeted towards large vehicles to prevent this kind of shit.
As was mentioned, the SUVs here are underpowered by American standards. I never really did understand the need to hit 60mph in under 7 seconds in an Escalade …
rob@ “I never really did understand the need to hit 60mph in under 7 seconds in an Escalade ….”
many of the owners of Escalades need that acceleration to escape the authorities……
Finally, a place to unload your year-old Yukon!
If any of y’all know any Brits, I can get them a screaming deal on a Dodge Ram…
Are they US SUV’s? Between the falling US dollar and the collapsed US SUV market, a Brit can pay for a lot of petrol with a huge saving in capital cost for the SUV. Even the RHD switch can’t cost that much.
Does seem to be more of them on the market, and people definately don’t have any more money over here. However, just recently, Ford launched the Kuga. I don’t like SUVs usually (Chelsea Tractors), but I must admit I kinda like this one – and the 2.0l Diesel will probably get around 30-35mpg so could be tempting even though I have absolutely no need of a vehicle like that.
Without digging into the numbers, I suspect an 11% increase in London is about the same units as 0.5% in Dallas. 11% in a relatively tiny market is still small.
And I don’t think this really counts if we’re talking BMW X3, VW Tiguan, or Landy LR2…all of which are nearly as economical as regular cars.
One possible explanation, spotted in the wild in
an unrelated story in today’s New York Times:
“affluenza”