THE GREAT ESCAPE
SUPER SUVS FROM BMW, MASERATI, MERCEDES-AMG, AND PORSCHE LOOK TO PUNCH A TICKET TO BEST DRIVER’S CAR
I earned my driver’s license among the pothole-pocked streets of Lower Manhattan, where “good” places to drive are few and far between. My suburban friends had twisty back roads and empty fields. At best, I had Brooklyn’s Second Avenue waterfront. The few times I could steal the keys to Dad’s Range Rover Sport, I would find myself bombing down Second Avenue’s cobbled road late at night.
It wasn’t much of a driver’s road, but it was one of the few places in the city I could go without pedestrians or other motor-ists. It was my escape, the supercharged V-8 echoing off the barren brick-front warehouses, the click-clunking of the air suspension over disused railroad tracks, and the massive Brooklyn Army Terminal building filling my windshield. That drive still holds a special place in my heart.
These memories are probably why I always jump at the opportunity to write our Super SUV comparisons. Blasting through Los Angeles’ famous canyon roads in a nearly three-ton, 600-horse-power atomic eggplant never gets old, like watching an Airbus A380 claw its way into the sky. What’s even better: seeing the eventual winner towering over the low-slung supercars at Best Driver’s Car a couple months later.
High-performance, city-savvy SUVs have come a long way since my dad’s Range Rover Sport, arguably among the first of the breed. The 385 horses his Rangey churned out raise no eyebrows these days—Ford offers a 400-hp Explorer and Dodge a 710-hp Durango. This year’s field will give our Best Driver’s Car entrants their toughest challenge yet, which says a lot considering the caliber of last year’s Super SUV winner, the Lamborghini Urus, and the prior year’s, the Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio.
In this year’s field, the least powerful vehicle we have, the 2020 BMW X3 M Competition, makes a mere
