2005 SUV of the Year Testing
We didn't need Death Valley to pick a winner
Photography by Editors of Motor Trend, John Kiewicz, Jeremiah Scott, Brian Vance
Cue Elmer Bernstein's theme from "The Magnificent Seven." Motor Trend's 2005 Sport/Utility of the Year, the Land Rover LR3, swaggered into town along with six others seeking the title: Chevrolet Equinox, Ford Escape Hybrid, Ford Freestyle, Jeep Grand Cherokee, Infiniti QX56, and Nissan Pathfinder. Some are Yul Brynner or Charles Bronson types (the LR3 is Steve McQueen, of course), while the Freestyle and Equinox are like Robert Vaughn and Brad Dexter: gunslingers for sure, but too dapper or too boyish to hang with the tough guys.
Evaluation began with the usual MT track tests, then thorough examinations of each model atop the Petersen Automotive Museum garage. On-road driving, the fun part, commenced the next morning. With just seven entries, we doubled up in a "drive, ride, swap" drill. Heavy floods detoured us from our usual drive through Death Valley and into colorful burgs 10 miles past the middle of nowhere. Charlotte Carpenter was Red Mountain's (population, 130) unofficial tour guide when we pulled over to swap SUVs in front of the historic Red Light district. Nearly a century ago, she said, local miners rented little cottages called "cribs," (and you thought it was an MTV-era term) on weekends, with or without working girls bused in from nearby Trona.
Moving on, we sampled performance with back-to-back drives on 5.4 miles of twisty road near Mount Whitney. Our day ended with chicken and pasta and beer at our hotel, the Winnedumah, whose rooms have hosted Roy Rogers, Gary Cooper, and Bing Crosby (but, alas, no Yul Brynner). The penultimate day mixed on- and off-road driving, and we learned that the LR3 has a high top speed and that you can run silent and run deep into a mineshaft solely on electric power in the Ford Escape.
Voting day began with a serious off-road challenge that separated the sport/utilities from the crossovers. Two of the four SUVs easily made it up the hard-core hill, and one emerged on top when we convened at a top-secret location to choose the Motor Trend Sport/Utility of the Year. This is the story of the others.
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