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Carryover platforms can also clearly compromise stance and propor-
tions. Take the Bentley Bentayga with its pinched nose and top-heavy
stance. The designers tried to package all that expansive Bentleyness on
Audi Q7 underpinnings. Plus, once the stance and proportions are wrong,
it’s easy to get all fussy and ornamental to compensate. Just look at big
Lexuses for evidence.
Trying to mimic your brand’s iconic models is another mistake for SUV
newbies. The first Porsche Cayenne looked like an over-inflated 911 on
platform boots. Trying to make a truck look like a 911, of course, did neither
the truck nor the 911 any favours.
I do wonder if the Germans are very good at luxury. Once they try to
move beyond Bauhaus design purity and add a bit of Downton Abbey gran-
deur, they flounder. The Germans are probably too practical to really get
luxury right.
Whereas other recent Rolls-Royces (Phantom, Ghost, Wraith) have bril-
liantly updated their brand’s time-honoured styling cues, the Cullinan was
BMW-owned Rolls’ first attempt at starting from scratch. They’d never
done an SUV before. The same was true for the Bentayga.
Of course, many of the above cars are good to drive and finely engi-
neered. They may also look okay in XL-obsessed America, where SUV
dinosaurs still stalk the interstates. But in Britain, they’re like Moby Dicks
on the Grand Union Canal. Plus, I’m sorry, when you’re piloting something
so huge, that looks as intimidating as a snarling Rottweiler, and bullies
other cars out of the way, you’re never going to feel the love.Former editor Gavin Green confronted Rolls-Royce’s
boss about the Cullinan in our December issues another grosswagen
goes on sale, it is surely
time to ponder: why
are so many big SUVs
so ugly? The latest to
join the litany of unlovely
leviathans is the new BMW
X7, for those who reckon the X5
is perhaps just a touch too petite.
The X7 is an immense thing, complemented by a Han-
nibal Lecter grille big enough to ingest unsuspecting small
hatchbacks and steep body sides that in the signature launch colour- Alpine White – look more like the cliffs of Dover than delicately sculpted
car flanks.
The big Audi Q7 looks like a slab-sided Godzilla stalking suburban
streets, but the X7 takes super-size German car design to a whole new level
of grossness. BMW is no stranger to unsightly SUVs, of course. The original
ill-proportioned X1 (E84) looked more like a bloated big-eyed monster from
the deep, fished up from the Mariana Trench, than a small BMW, a classic
case of a platform (in this case, from an old 3-series) stretched and stuffed.
It was Han Solo turned Jabba the Hutt.
The BMW X6 is possibly the most egregious SUV of all, and the epitome
of Inefficient Dynamics. It has enough ground clearance to vault a log but
struggles off road, a huge footprint yet minimal room inside, a massive
engine but not particularly engaging performance, a firm ride but average
handling, and it guzzles juice like last orders in the Hofbräuhaus. And it
looks like a swollen sports saloon on stilts.
BMW’s other whopper, the X5, is far more comely, although they do seem
to get uglier as they get newer and bigger. The original X5 (E53) was nicely
proportioned, and now looks positively dainty. Equally, all big Benz SUVs
look awful, apart from that honest workhorse, the G-Class. The Bentley
Bentayga is a styling tragedy and the Rolls-Royce Cullinan looks like an
upscaled version of the latest London taxi, albeit with nicer brightwork and
better paint. Porsche Cayennes are also unsightly – although unlike BMW
X5s, the newer they are, the better they look.
Gerry McGovern, designer of the Range Rover – widely regarded as the
most elegant big SUV – once told me it’s more difficult to design a very big
car than a small one, in the same way it’s harder to dress large people than
slim folk.
Illustration by Peter StrainA
‘The immense
BMW X7 takes
super-size car
design to a whole
new level of
grossness’