The SUV Coupé trend is booming. Paul van Gass wonders what makes these graceless coupés so popular.
It was premier brand BMW who took it mainstream first, quickly followed by Merc and most recently Porsche and Audi. Nowadays, it seems, every car builder South of the Arctic (most notably in China) has one in its line up or is in the process of developing one.
We are talking SUV Coupés, of course, the new craze taking the motoring world by storm … as again depicted by the excess of SUV Coupés at Auto Shanghai Dongfeng, Haval, Aion, and Seat. Yet I am still trying to figure out what it is about these tasteless, bastardised design abominations that make them so desirable.
You see, the SUV trend I get, as I can totally understand why people wants a higher, more spacious vehicle that can get them virtually anywhere. But a coupé version of the same thing? It just does not make sense, as much of the versatility of an SUV is lost by coercing it into a coupé shape.
Strictly speaking, these aberrations do not deserve being termed coupés, as in essence (bar an exception or two) they are butt-ugly four-door fastback versions of properly designed Sports Utilities or crossovers. In my view, they represent the height of bad automotive taste – a portrayal of the new era of excess and bling.
Some described the original SUV – the first-generation Toyota RAV4 – as ‘Çlaudia Schiffer in hiking boots’. Well, if this depiction fits, then these new SUV Coupés must be ‘a Claudia clone in a racy, ill-fitting number with hiking boots’. But, as kitsch and common as it is – if the customer wants it, it needs to be built …
To be fair, some of these pseudo-coupé executions are better than others, such as the latest efforts from Aion, Dongfeng, and the new Q8 from Audi but in general, the whole SUV Coupé craze leaves me cold. Nothing with a high ground clearance can look sporty, not even with a slanted roofline. Why not just return to some functional and solid designs, like seen on the latest Range Rover Evoque, and giving this SUV Coupé what it deserves – a summarily coup de grâce.
Text: Paul van Gass / Images: Ferdi de Vos
