There was a time when sports cars were low-slung and had two seats, while SUVs were slow, lumbering behemoths that were good at hauling loads and conquering rugged terrain, but not much else. However, boundaries have been blurred over the past decade and a half, and a sub-genre has emerged that morphs these two divergent vehicle types into a single entity.
The Jaguar F-Type has become a sort of figurehead for the once-fading British luxury carmaker, leading the charge as the brand redefines itself as a more aggressively-sporty alternative to typical premium choices. The 2-door sports car debuted less than two years ago, but more variants have been added to the line-up this year, namely an all-wheel-drive option and a manual gearbox. We drove these new versions in the outskirts of New York this summer.
Does an SUV belong on a racetrack? There are several German brands trying to answer that question, but their offerings are so compromised in the pursuit of Nurburgring lap records that they hardly qualify as SUVs. And then there’s the new 2015 Range Rover Sport SVR, which set its own ‘Ring record for SUVs, however briefly it held. The difference between the SVR and other super-SUVs is that it can still go offroad. We drove one of these battering rams at a media event in New York last month.