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| The future: Some SUV fans envision a time when vehicles like the Suzuki Dune will run free. Courtesy of Suzuki |
For the S.U.V. set, a plunge into the mud
More four-wheel-drive owners appear interested in leveraging their vehicles' capabilities – and testing their own.
from the October 26, 2007 edition
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Other observers see the pitching of new off-road-capable 4x4s as a desperate bid by automakers to hold the interest of die-hard truck fans amid a consumer move away from the biggest truck-based SUVs that began a couple of years ago.
"What we're getting back to might be a bit more like the 1970s and early 1980s, before the [Ford] Explorer and the little [Chevrolet] Blazer created this huge boom in SUVs as passenger car," says Jon Coifman, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, one group that decries gratuitous four-wheeling. That would leave most of the real heavyweights to those relatively few drivers who actually need them.
But, broadly, the 4x4 core has thickened. Even Volvo now advertises its XC70 wagon (also with hill-descent control) in television spots that show it being used to pick up mountain climbers on a rock-strewn slope before returning to pavement. That's a refined take on those ads that put rugged trucks on pedestals – literally, atop the Southwest's rock spires.
"Manufacturers have always tried to tap into the Walter Mitty in all of us," says Bill Burke, who runs 4-Wheeling America, a training and expedition outfit in Fruita, Colo. "That's fine, but most folks are happy with a [Toyota] RAV-4 or a Subaru." Such car-based crossovers have been hot sellers in recent years.
Mr. Burke, reached on his cellphone in a Utah canyon, clearly favors capable over cushy, and reliance on sound mechanics over sophisticated electronics. He praises brick-like, pedigreed Land Rover Defenders, old Broncos, and Jeep Rubicons ("phenomenal," he says, even in stock form). And he's skeptical about some of his sport's newer entrants. "A lot of people are building 'pretty' trucks [that will] never see a mud puddle," Burke says. "On the other hand, some are looking for ways to get out into the mountains or the woods for an escape, and they're using their sport utes to that end."
Many expedition leaders like Burke promote responsible practices in off-roading – staying within designated areas, working on trail restoration. There's plenty of pushback from environmentalists, who note that even a small percentage of errant off-roaders can inflict long-term damage. The US Forest Service has struggled to enforce restrictions on use of public lands by off-roaders.
"It certainly couldn't hurt if people start using equipment for the purpose it was meant for," says SEMA's MacIllivray. But there is, he says, a sense of "you are what you drive."
One image American drivers like to project: brawny self-reliance. That means there will always be some pretenders. Range Rovers sell well in pan-flat Miami, says my co-driver, Kinnear, coaching me to use left-foot braking for control as we traverse another hard-mounded section of the course. "I've seen [Land Rover] Discoverys four, five, and six years old that have never been in low range," he says, gripping an armrest. After years of disuse, he says, "the lever doesn't even move."
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