Recently, while traipsing from showroom to showroom in search of a used car for my growing clan, the iconic line from Christopher Nolan’s seminal Batman movie The Dark Knight came to mind: “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” And by villain, of course, I mean an SUV driver.
Because, if you haven’t shopped for a secondhand family car recently, I’ll save you the shock: wherever you look, it’s SUVs.
It’s no surprise when these giant cars now make up 30% of all cars on the road and were 50% of all new car sales in rich countries in 2023. The look has been so popular that traditional body styles have been modified into taller, wider frames. Even Volvo, the defining family car brand, now only offers SUVs in the UK. All of which means that if, like me, you want a car under 10 years old, hoping it lasts another five, your options are “tank” and “tank-ette”.
Driving the same small city car for nearly 10 years has felt, overall, like a net good. Cheap to run and clean-air-zone-compliant, the compact car is the sociable motor. The people pleaser of the road, at this size a tight parking spot is rarely a worry. Even its horn, a pipsqueak of a beep, conveys more “toodles” than threat. Yes, fine, on a windy motorway it can feel like it might become airborne. But this precious little donkey is reliable and humble. Unlike the flashy warhorse, the SUV, with its ever-widening size (0.5cm wider each year) intimidating other drivers and pedestrians,…
