RDH - SUVs: Strong Shells for Worthy Swells

SUVs: Strong Shells for Worthy Swells

January 19, 2007

Okay, maybe you just need your SUV. Especially if you're upper middle class and have children, you might want to feel that you are doing all you can do for your vulnerable little progeny. And as the rich have been doing for time immemorial, you will use all your resources to protect them, from the sunshade on the rear passenger window for their skin and eyes (you can't be too careful; melanoma and macular degeneration lurk around every corner) to the omega 3 supplements for their brains.

When it comes to vehicles, the choice seems so obvious. Look at the size of those tires, the impressive bulkiness of the body, the assurance of four-wheel-drive traction. What's more, the interior seems bulky and even luxurious in most models. What's a few dozen extra dollars at the gas tank compared to such peace of mind?

Or perhaps your child is growing up. Let's say, for the sake of illustration, that you're sending him or her off to an expensive college in a Northeastern city far from your beloved Westchester or Fairfax. Those winters in Cambridge or Providence or Hartford or even Philadelphia can be pretty bad. What's an additional twenty or forty thousand dollars next to the hundreds of thousands you're already planning on spending, compared, again, to your peace of mind that your "baby" will be safe? That's right: send your kid off to school with an SUV. If you're lucky, you may already have one in your fleet. Give her that three-year-old Chevy Tahoe and get yourself the Lexus LX 470 that you've always wanted: 5,590 pounds of pure capability. Only 17 miles per gallon on the highway, but what does that matter? The gas tank holds more than 25 gallons of premium fuel—enough to make it from Westchester to Cambridge and back again, and no amount of snow will stand in your way. You can drop in on your kid whenever he or she is feeling down, or just because. Care package on demand.

"Mr. Harper, are you making fun of the rich?" Sort of. And I do like to tell myself that if I had money I wouldn't buy a truck unless I needed one. But you never know. Money changes people.

Okay. Some kids—even rich ones—are pretty independent and gritty. If they insist on something like a little Honda CR-V starter SUV, make sure it's one of the new ones for which Honda has thoroughly addressed the side-impact safety issues of earlier models. And if your child is extremely sexy and cooler than cool and insists on a Jeep, go with the Compass or the Liberty, not the WW II-era Wrangler. Those little doors on the Wrangler crumple like a tin can at the least impact (side-impact air bags, standard on all the other Jeeps, must be impossible to implement on this one; and, especially if your child is left-handed, you won't want to take the risk), the gas mileage is horrible, and if you're worried about the Wrangler's significant rollover risk, you'll have to pay quite a bit extra for the Unlimited version's longer wheelbase. But if you really want your kid to go to the head of the class, and you have a few extra dollars at your disposal, go for the enormously stylish and tough-looking FJ Cruiser.

So much for the rich. For the rest of us, SUVs are superfluous and ridiculous. Even a ten-year-old Honda Civic DX can make it across the country and back—something Lewis and Clark had quite a bit of trouble attempting to do. (Today, when we ask for directions at a gas station, our helpful guide has no chance of someday making it onto the face of a gold-colored dollar coin.) The roads have been paved at least since the days of Eisenhower, and for a savings of many thousands of dollars, most people can afford to sit out the occasional snowstorm (and snowstorms are soon, at least in North America, if the scientists are to be believed, to become even more occasional as a cumulative result of automobiles of all kinds, a fact not helped by the biggest consumers of gasoline). So rich or poor, your kids will probably be okay. Very poor? Most campuses are walker friendly!

And as for you—even if you don't have kids, you'll want to buy as much vehicle as your money will allow. Unless, of course, you're not a raving, insecure egomaniac, in which case you'll want a car that makes sense on the pavement. Something like a Subaru Impreza WRX STI (rich) or 2.5i sedan or sport wagon (poor). Very poor? Move to a city like Chicago, where you'd feel silly owning a car.