Don't get me wrong, I certainly believe there is a place for SUV's but the abundance of SUV's today speaks to the power of marketing in the US. TIME magazine nominated SUV's as the worst product design trend in its top ten list... which I believe is an astute observation. Madison Avenue has convinced the populace that every family should own a gas guzzling SUV just to pick-up the groceries and deliver the kids to school! The trend is so pervasive that now every luxury and sport car manufacturer is producing its own SUV model. Living in L.A. where smog is a serious concern, this kind of mindless consumerism is troubling. I would rather see Porsche and others develop a high performance hybrid engine that could provide us with the same performance we expect from traditional internal combustion engines but at less cost to our environment...<p>Just my opinion.

Not to mention a terrible waste of non-renewable resources!

Last thanksgiving, sitting at the table with a design engineer for Ford, I bemoaned the fact that there weren't any domestic alternatives to something like an A4 or even a Subaru Legacy. "Buy a TRUCK" with a throaty, masculine emphasis on 'truck' is what I heard..<p>Rich<br>'98 2.8Q sport, not lookin' back