Comparison Tests
We are not afraid of Ohio. No way.
We zipped right past the signs warning of "Amateur Karaoke Night" and beyond "Terry's We-Grind-Our-Own-Hamburg Drive-In," where even our commander in chief recently risked a basket of fried chicken. We steered smack through Circleville -- home of the international pumpkin fest -- whose main street was on fire and thus closed to all civilians except those driving F-150s with pulsating strobes. We cruised deep into Hitler country -- first Huber Hitler Road, then Martha Hitler Park. We remained composed even as we idled past the Wampus Tribe's intergalactic meeting hall in South Bloomingville.
We sustained this courageous clip in order to sample two Ohio routes that, among this seven-SUV group, would separate the men from the toys. First, there was our traditional, top-secret Hocking-heim Ring Road -- a challenge to MR2s and M3s, never mind a bunch of Britney Spears designer utes. Second, there loomed the off-road rigors of a trail more deeply rutted than Willie Nelson's forehead -- a trail that a forest ranger promised "might like to kill them bitty trucks dead." He pronounced that last word "DAY-idd."
This was fine with us. We had already perfected several southern-Ohio off-road techniques: drinking Busch beer from cans and emitting random high-pitched whoops -- ingredients evidently vital to one's successful extraction from axle-deep muck holes whose ejecta have been known to weld shut rural mailboxes for upwards of three months.
In fact, we went out of our way to select a trail whose 30 percent grades and nose-grinding creek crossings would place it on the "Don't Even Try" list for all but a handful of America's sport-uting faithful. Frankly, we reckoned only one or two of our enlistees would trample the trail's terminus. This was, after all, the $40,000 designer class -- SUVs one luxurious cut above the mainstream Chevy Blazers and Ford Explorers clogging grocery-store lots nationwide. With the exception of the Land Rover, the seven in this group were not so much SUVs as WOTTs -- "wagons on tall tires" -- with each borrowing more from sedate sedans than from tough trucks.
But you know what? They all made it. All seven. No kidding. With a little taunting, even the Lexus RX300 completed the trail, and it's, well, you know, essentially an all-wheel-drive Camry. Which meant we could judge all seven by standards more regularly imposed by mainstream purchasers -- the vehicles' behavior at felonious speeds, for starters, rather than their potential for inducing above-average beer consumption and random whooping.
One more thing. We had hoped to inflict this abuse on a few other candidates: a current-model Isuzu Trooper and a spanking-new Olds Bravada, for instance. We couldn't get our hands on either. We might also have included a loaded Toyota 4Runner and a heavily optioned Jeep Grand Cherokee, but several nail-biting editors, whose names are now lost to us, eventually vetoed that duo for failing to achieve levels of luxury deemed appropriate to the class. If you are outraged by this, write a forceful note to the president of Eritrea. We've temporarily misplaced his ZIP Code.
