BackSedans or SUVs—the debate goes on
This month, we decided to compare a sedan and an SUV and try to figure out which body style makes more sense
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Not that long ago, unless you consider the 1990s ancient history, if you bought a luxury car, you bought a sedan. Mercedes made them in three sizes as did BMW and, in India, only Ravi Shastri’s driveway had an Audi. True, there were Range Rovers but those were leather-clad large versions of the British military Land Rover Defender and had the reliability of a political standpoint and were driven by members of the British Royal family.
Thanks to advances in modern manufacturing two decades on, we are now inundated with car models. From making sedans in three lengths—one for the bourgeoisie, one for the courtiers and one for the leader—the average German luxury car manufacturer now makes around 500 body shapes. You’d hope you did well in higher secondary mathematics because calculating the permutations and combinations of options (most of which are unfortunately not available in India) is pretty crazy.
But thanks to the American soccer mom in the early 2000s, the fastest growing luxury car segment now is the sports-utility vehicle, popularly known by its acronym SUV. According to BMW India boss Philipp Von Sahr, almost half of the cars sold by the German car maker in India are SUVs. But are SUVs all that they are cracked up to be?
Let’s start with the looks; and this is important because in most cases sedans always look better. In this particular case, the current-generation BMW 5-series is the best-looking car in its class. It is perfectly proportioned and does not disappoint from any angle. The X3, however, is not the prettiest BMW out there; it isn’t bad looking, but it looks rather ordinary, particularly when compared with the 5-series. And possibly with the exception of the new Range Rovers, most SUVs are not attractive. Mercedes, for example, gives its SUVs nice design tricks but that cannot hide the fact that the SUVs look odd.
There is a very good reason for that; while most SUVs are meant to be like English public schoolboys, play rugby by day and go to black-tie dinners by night, few of them are really rough riders. An X3 can deal with the potholes and uneven roads of Okhla, but it is not meant for proper off-roading. Yes, BMW and the other German car makers often do demonstrations of how their SUVs can handle rough roads.
Doing such drives in a 500-horsepower Porsche Cayenne feels odd; but when push comes to shove very few SUVs are meant to live in a world without asphalt. If off-roading is your thing, you will have to turn to the Land Rover/Range Rover family. And those cars, while amazingly capable, cost a fair sum of money.
There is a German option for extreme off-roading too, the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen—which is also used by the German military—which Mercedes-Benz India only sells with a twin-turbocharged 550-horsepower V8 engine; but with that kind of power one will need to haul an oil tanker behind it.
And while most SUVs are not designed for off-roading, one compelling reason you hear from SUV owners is the “bad road" argument. Yes, because SUVs ride higher and have higher suspension, they do make sense if you regularly encounter huge speed-breakers and potholes. One of the worst things about owning a luxury car is often hearing the metal hit the road as your extremely low car bottom brushes against a small mountain disguised as a speed breaker.
But there are ways of driving over such obstacles, and unless such obstacles are frequent in routes you take, why go for an SUV in the first place, because there is a pretty bad downside to height. When you get off a 5-series, there is no searching for the ground, you look dignified. Climbing in and out of SUVs is rarely dignified, more like clambering in. Which is why all world leaders use sedans, because they have to be dignified getting in and out of the car.
Sure, the hulking road presence of an SUV is a major reason, people choose to buy them, and in that regard the X3 looks and feels larger on the road. The schoolyard bully versus the aesthete. And to each their own, but unless I was headed off to Lahaul-Spiti or Sikkim, I would stick to the 5-series over the X3. And it isn’t just the case with BMW; lower to the ground and better handling in the city where one lives is invaluable.
Kushan Mitra’s 9th grade teacher told his mother, “I’m afraid your son will end up as a driver." Happily for him, Mitra did end up as a driver of sorts.
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