I'm shocked! It doesn't seem so long ago that the car company, Honda of Japan, was being lauded as a sane practical alternative to American made gas guzzlers. And now they do THIS!!?? A deliberate ripoff of GMs Chevy Avalanche, the ugliest thing on four wheels - actually it's tied with the Cadillac Escalade EXT, which is essentially the same vehicle with a few Cadillac extravagances thrown in - such as a Global Positioning System in case you get lost on your way home from the mall.
I was just getting over my shock at Porsche's 'Cayenne' SUV, a bloated behemoth which takes the carefully crafted lines of the Porsche Targa sports car and pumps them up to absurd proportions.
It's become clear that in the automotive design world, there is no shame. It really is as though we are in the days of chrome and tailfins again!
The inefficiency of these new SUVs is criminal. The 'utility' for which they are ostensibly named is a sham. The high ground clearance of these vehicles is totally useless to the vast majority of those who own them, since they are never taken off of paved roads. In fact, on the highway they are relatively unstable and non aerodynamic, which, combined with their poor gas mileage make them anything but utilitarian. Nor are they 'sporty'. What 'sport' would that be? Destroying the environment?
Certainly there are those who really need such machines. The U.N. makes good use of SUVs when delivering aid to people living in places without roads. Forest rangers, geologists, archaeologists and others for whom off road travel is a career certainly can't make do with a mere automobile.
But aren't there already more than enough various models of SUV to go around? Do we really need the Honda Ridgeline? I think you know the answer.
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