Five SUVs that are really cars underneath
Monday, 5 March 2018
The term SUV is almost as misleading as it is confusing these days, with a number of different approaches being taken by manufacturers to build this type of vehicle. Whatever that is.
Regardless of your personal definition, the term SUV has spread to cover everything from a hard-core off-road vehicle based on a truck to a small hatchback with raised ride height. Today we take a look at five road-car platforms that are used to build SUV-type models.
BMW UKL2
BMW's UKL (Untere Klasse, or 'lower class') platform first appeared under the latest generation of Mini hatch in 2014, with the wider, longer UKL2 making its debut under the BMW 2-series Active Tourer in the same year.
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The UKL2 platform currently forms the basis of not only the X2, but also the Mini Countryman, the Mini Clubman and the BMW X1. It also sits under the Chinese Brilliance Zinoro 60H and the extremely attractive China-only BMW 1-series sedan that came out last year, both being a joint venture between BMW and Brilliance. This means that the 1-series sedan is currently the only FWD 1-series in production. For now.
JLR D8
Jaguar Land Rover's JLR D8 platform that appears under its latest small SUVs, including the Range Rover Evoque, Land Rover Discovery Sport and just-released Jaguar E-Pace, is a development of the Ford EUCD platform that has its roots back in 2006, when it made its debut under the Ford S-Max and Galaxy, as well as the Volvo S80.
The EUCD platform also gave us the third-gen Mondeo, the Land Rover Freelander and the Volvo V70, XC70, S60 and XC60, as well as the basis of the cancelled XC90 SUV that was later resurrected on Volvo's new Scalable Product Architecture platform.
VW PQ35
Out of all the world's car manufacturers, the VW Group is almost certainly the best at utilising scalable platforms under a vast array of different cars, and the PQ35 platform is no exception.
The PQ35 that currently sits under the Audi Q3 also formed the basis of the last-generation Audi A3 and TT, as well as previous generations of the Volkswagen Touran, Caddy, Golf, Tiguan, Scirocco, Jetta, Eos and Beetle, along with a number of smaller Skoda and Seat models. The PQ35 itself evolved from the VW Group A platform that appeared under the first Golf in 1974, and is currently being phased out in favour of the company's new MQB modular platform.
Project Global
The GS or Project Global platform was originally developed back in the early 2000s by Mitsubishi and DaimlerChrysler, with both parties developing it separately after 2004. There has been a simply startling array of deeply underwhelming vehicles sitting on the platform.
Mitsubishi arguably produced the best cars to appear on the Project Global platform, including the Outlander, ASX, Lancer and the latest Eclipse Cross - which is very good indeed. This also led to Citroen and Peugeot selling the Outlander-based C-Crosser and 4007, as well as the later ASX-based Aircross and 4008. Chrysler simply churned out an appalling array of garbage on the same underpinnings, including the Dodge Caliber and Avenger, the Chrysler Sebring and 200 and the Jeep Patriot and Compass.
GM Fiat Small
The Jeep models on the previous list of shame arguably fared better than most and actually became fairly decent cars, before the Patriot was dropped and the Compass replaced by an all-new model that's just been launched here.
The new Compass drops the elderly Mitsubishi architecture in favour of a long wheelbase version of the GM Fiat Small platform that already sits under another Jeep - the smaller Renegade.
The Renegade shares its SWB version of the platform with the Fiat Argo, while the LWB version also sits under the Fiat Toro, Tipo and 500L.
A narrow version of the platform (in both SWB and LWB forms) also forms the basis of the Alfa Romeo MiTo, Opel Adam and Corsa and the Fiat Doblo, Opel Combo and Ram ProMaster City vans.