Collectible Modern Classic SUVs

Author: John-Joe Vollans
Photography: Manufacturers

We can hear all you track-day types groaning from here, but hear us out… While we’d certainly agree that a performance estate makes a cooler and better driving load lugger, there are nevertheless a handful of modern classic era SUVs that have also earned their modern classic credentials.

For many decades, the American market was treated to a host of ‘lifestyle’ off-roaders that were both handy along the trail or highway, but Europe was much slower to catch on to the versatile charms of an estate car on stilts.

Come the new millennium, manufacturers on this side of the Pond were inexorably moving towards making SUVs, with a host of models ready to take on adventurous outdoor activities and the school run in equal measure, mostly the latter.

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It’s impossible to compile any list of surprisingly good to drive premium SUVs without BMW’s (E53) X5. Beardy, tweed-clad Land Rover types will likely sneer at this unapologetic on-roader, while also utterly overlooking the reasons why most people bought – and continue to buy – BMW SUVs. These models are popular because they offer practicality, a heightened driving position, premium image and have plenty of space for the whole family. By these metrics, the original X5 scores extremely well. Add in period BMW build quality – via its newly opened US factory in Spartanburg South Carolina – plenty of technology that’s still relatively trick even today, and a range of engines offering everything from frugal-ish six-cylinder petrol and diesels to flame-spitting V8s, and it becomes hard not to commend the X5. Oh, and it also has an aggressive stance and visual appeal – thanks to the penwork of designer Frank Stephenson – all its own.

What’s easy to overlook today is how much of an outlier the original X5 was. Beyond BMW’s hyperbole – attempting to convince us all to adopt its SAV ‘Sports Activity Vehicle’ tagline – making an ‘off-road’ vehicle that drove as well as a premium saloon on tarmac was next to unheard of in Europe. Only Mercedes-Benz with its ML and Land Rover with its Freelander (hold on, we’re getting to it) had even bothered, with varying degrees of success. The X5 was pitched perfectly into a premium sector where many a monied owner, and their spouses, clamoured to buy BMW’s first big boy.

Somewhat paradoxically, the same NFU-card carrying Land Rover devotees will probably excuse away the Freelander, Land Rover’s shot at the same market. The Freelander mixed more useable on-road qualities with Land Rover’s legendary go-anywhere design, creating an instant rural sweetheart in the process.

Arriving in 1997, the Freelander went into battle a market dominated by Japanese makers. Pint-sized gems like the Suzuki Vitara and Toyota RAV4 had been hoovering up young customers by their hundreds of thousands and Land Rover wanted a slice. Having recently found itself in the BMW fold, Land Rover was made even more acutely aware of its lack of model-range progression, BMW being past masters of enticing younger customers with its 3 Series (now MINI/1 Series) and retaining them as they graduated all the way up its model range. In keeping with this mantra, the Freelander deliberately sat below the likes of the Defender, Discovery and Range Rover models – yet was still far from cheap, debuting at £17,995 (£34,771 today) – it would nevertheless go on to become Europe’s best-selling SUV. Having not appeared in America until 2002 however, and with less than stellar reliability, the first Freelander was yet another tantalising British car industry what might have been… Speaking of somewhat chequered (to put it politely) reliability, when its four-wheel drive remained, err, driving – first-generation viscous couplers are known weak points – the Freelander managed far better in the rough stuff than the aforementioned BMW.

It might not have been able to ford as deep or climb as steep as a Defender, or match the cache of a Range Rover, but the Freelander bolstered Land Rover’s range in a vital sector it has never left since – even if today’s entry-level Land Rover wears a Discovery Sport badge.

All this talk of SUVs and we’ve yet to mention one from the land of its origin, America. This territory has, of course, produced some of the SUV’s greatest hits, with Jeep arguably kicking it all off in the first place. It made a family off-road station wagon way back in 1946, but it was the Wagoneer of 1963 that truly cemented Jeep’s take on the SUV formula. Fast forward two decades and we got the fabulous Cherokee XJ. Small – especially by US standards – it still managed to take its off-road work seriously, keeping Jeep’s legendary go-anywhere reputation intact, adding respectable road manners and dependable mechanical components into the mix. It was wildly popular around the globe, testament to this was its numerous big- and small-screen outings; chances are if you watched TV in the 1990s, you saw someone drive an XJ.

Ah yes, it’s time for the model that made 911 fans spit out their bratwursts. News of Porsche making an SUV in the late-1990s was, however, also met with thunderous applause, especially in the USA. Just as those rear-engine aficionados had loathed the Boxster and all it represented a few years earlier, Porsche die-hards also overlooked the need for their favourite manufacturer to diversify in the 1990s merely to survive.

The early part of the decade had seen some of the most challenging years the famous Stuttgart firm had ever faced. The success of the Boxster, an essential element in keeping Porsche in the black, lead to the subsequent Cayenne affording Porsche – and its 911 core fanbase – a future. Porsche’s controversial ‘third model’ allegedly came down to a choice between either an MPV or an SUV, so it could have been a lot worse! Although, we’re mildly curious to see what Porsche’s take on an Espace might have looked like…

The Cayenne took a new approach to the SUV formula, that of making a genuinely rapid and driver-engaging 4×4. It was thought to be impossible to marry these seemingly disparate elements until Porsche went and did it, with very few who actually got behind the wheel of that first-generation Cayenne in 2002 having anything bad to say about how it drove. The twin-turbocharged V8 S model in particular was a rocket ship – 0-60mph in 5 seconds and a top speed of 167mph – while still offering all the usual Porsche refinements and quality fans had come to expect.

Over 276k first-generation Cayennes found homes, putting much needed funds back into the Porsche coffers, its success guaranteeing the Cayenne’s lineage to the present day.

If you could own any SUV, what would it be? Let us know in the comments.