SUVs have taken over the world after not even existing for the majority of the time that automobiles have. Now, they’re everywhere we look and they’ve spun off a new subspecies of sorts; the ‘sporty’ sport utility vehicle. But which one is actually the best driver’s and/or performance cars out of the bunch?
We all know that perhaps the first one to successfully be labeled a good driver’s car is the Porsche Cayenne. It’s been said before but it’s worth saying again, the Cayenne is a Porsche first, and an SUV second. Still, there were many performance-oriented SUVs that existed before it.
The GMC Typhoon rightly gets some credit for being one of the earliest properly quick SUVs but lacked the kind of car-like handling that the Porsche possesses in spades. The Lamborghini LM002 is maybe the most extreme version of a wild motor in an SUV well before the Cayenne arrived on the scene, but it was anything but a driver’s car.
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Still, many other brands noticed the success of Porsche’s quick people mover and followed up with their own offerings. BMW brought out the X6M which Jeremy Clarkson famously raked over the coals. Mercedes released the ML55 AMG too.
It wasn’t just Europeans that got in on the fun either. Jeep produced the muscled-up Grand Cherokee SRT8 and Chevrolet dropped a 6.0-liter V8 engine under the hood of the Trailblazer and called it the SS. Of course, modern SUVs are even more powerful and far more capable of handling a corner or two without scaring the bejesus out of you.
The new Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk is one of the quickest performance SUVs to ever come out of America. Its corporate cousin, the Dodge Durango Hellcat, might be the most insane, especially if your idea of a driver’s car is mainly straight-line performance. Though things don’t get more rational on the other side of the pond.
Aston Martin DBX 707 makes 697-horsepower (512 kW), making it one of the most potent internal combustion-powered SUVs on the planet Audi and Lamborghini each have their own fighters too with slight variations on the same twin-turbocharged V8.
Of course, maybe all of this just comes back to Porsche and its Cayenne Turbo GT, in particular, that is the current Nurburgring lap record holder for SUVs / Crossovers.You tell us though, which SUV is the best driver’s and/or performance car out of this increasingly competitive category?
Correction: The 697 hp (707 PS) DBX 707 isn’t the most powerful series production SUV with an internal combustion engine as we initially wrote, that distinction currently goes to the Dodge Durango Hellcat with 710 hp.
