The SUV Craze

An SUV is what a layman in Nigerian would refer to as a "Jeep". SUV stands for Sport Utility Vehicle. A sport utility vehicle or SUV is a car classification that combines the elements of a road-going passenger car with features from off-road vehicles, such as raised ground clearance and four-wheel drive. To bring it down, SUV refers to a car that is big and powerful enough to haul a bunch of stuff in the trunk, while doing it's job in a sleek fashion by being quick on the road. Common examples of SUV's include the Toyota Highlander, Lexus RX350, Ford Edge, Honda CR-V, among others. In the past decade, the SUV has been the number one pick for a family vehicle, especially for families that are not so large.

Common Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV's)

Anyhoo, this episode is not centered on the common SUV's seen every day on the road. It is rather referring to the SUV craze among the big dogs of the automotive world, the so-called luxury and high-performance car brands. In my opinion, the whole SUV craze began with the Bentley Bentayga launched in late 2015. Prior to the launch of the Bentley Bentayga, mainly three high-performance car brands offered SUV's in their line up and this includes BMW with their X5 and X6 models, Mercedes Benz with the AMG or BRABUS versions of their SUV's as well as Porsche with the Porsche Cayene. The Porsche Cayene in particular did very well in the car market and sold in thousands.

The reason for the high sale values of the Porsche Cayene being the low cost of the SUV when compared with a proper Porsche machine like the Porsche 911. It makes perfect sense to be the proud owner of just any Porsche (SUV) for a fraction of the money it would actually cost to own a proper performance Porshe. To put this in perspective, a Porsche Cayene in 2010 cost $62,000 while a Porsche 911 base model cost $88,000. The individual purchasing the SUV would have saved $26,000 which is a whole lot of money while retaining his or her bragging rights as a Porsche owner. For this reason alone, thousands flocked dealerships and got themselves performance SUV's from Porsche. Fast forward a few years and Volkswagen who is like the godfather of Porsche decided to use the same tactic for another son (Bentley) and thus the Bentley Bentayga was born.

Luxury and High-Performance SUV's

The Bentley Bentayga pictured in the bottom right corner of the image above just like the Porsche Cayenne in 2010, sold like soft bread and hot akara on a Saturday morning. This gave Volkswagen the confidence to experiment even more with other car models like Lamborghini, with the Lamborghini Urus SUV. The Lamborghini Urus did exceptionally well in the market, as a lot of celebrities were drawn to it and to name but a few, Kanye West, Travis Scott and our very own Odogwu, Burna Boy owns one.

Lamborghini Urus (My favorite SUV at the moment)

"Whether you’re talking sales or profits, 2021 was Lamborghini’s most successful year ever. It sold 8405 cars, generating a €1.95 billion ($2.1 billion) turnover and 20.2% profitability. In addition, every month it received more orders than it could fulfill", brand Chairman and CEO Stephan Winkelmann said. As a result, Lamborghini's waiting list is now over 12 months long. The singular success of the Lamborghini Urus, made every other high-performance car company quickly cook up something in order to put up an SUV in their car line up and hence the SUV craze in the automotive world. Some of these new high-performance SUV's include the Jaguar F-Pace, Rolce Royce Cullinan, Dodge Durango, Tesla Model X and the so on. Even Ferrari succumbed to the peer pressure as they are set to release an SUV very soon.

Welcome once again to the Turbo Nerdz family. Kindly leave a comment on your favorite SUV at the moment. Thank you for reading and always remember to Turbo that engine.