The Oddest SUVs Ever Built

With a lineage dating back to the original rough-and-tumble World War II military Jeep, the sport-utility vehicle market shows no signs of retreating, even if most models have gone soft in the guise of car-based crossovers. With Maserati and Bentley recently announcing their intentions to sell luxury SUVs of their own, that would leave a mere smattering of brands like Ferrari, Jaguar and Rolls-Royce among the few makes not to show some skin in this market segment.

Of course mere entry into the sport-utility vehicle business is no guarantee of success. Automotive history is scattered with the remains of some truly oddball models, most of which came to market riding the SUV tsunami that crested in the 1990?s. And that?s not including current strange-but-true entries like the Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet convertible, the creepily militaristic Mercedes-Benz G-Class or the curiously fish-shaped BMW X6 and Acura ZDX fastback models.

We?ll give a gracious pass to elemental, but crude, entries like the redoubtable International Harvester Scout that was perhaps 20 years ahead of the curve conceptually, but was plagued by a heritage of farm-equipment technology. Likewise, we?re look the other way regarding mechanical misses like the scurrilous Suzuki Samurai, tinny Ford Bronco II or the chunky Isuzu Amigo. And the less said about anomalies like the AM General-built right-hand-drive Jeep DJ postal vehicle that inevitably found its way into consumers hands via government auctions, the better.

We?re talking about true eccentricities of the automotive universe that, for the most part, came and went without nary a whimper. to that end the accompanying slide show takes a not-so-fond look at what we?ve identified as being 10 of the oddest SUVs ever to hit the pavement.

Click here for the full list and gallery: 10 Oddest SUVs.

You?ll still see some of those bygone models parked along the side of the road on occasion, like the over-styled Isuzu VehiCROSS and Pontiac Aztek, the truly strange Suzuki X-90 and the appropriately named Volkswagen thing. some of them were initially sold in such small numbers they?ve since become all but extinct, like the short-lived Laforza, Lamborghini LM002 and GMC Typhoon. And then there?s the original Hummer H1 that took on Saddam Hussein in Operation Desert Storm and returned home to eventually spawn an entire line of failed models and become the poster child for vehicular largess.

Lock the transmission in low gear, head for the hills and click over to the full slide show to get the dirt on some past ? and current ? oddball SUVs.

Click here for the full list and gallery: 10 Oddest SUVs.

Jim Gorzelany is author of the Automotive Intelligentsia 2011-2012 Sports Car Guide, available at Amazon [click here), Barnes & Noble [click here] and the Apple iBooks Store.

Source: http://www.rickandsteve.co.uk/general/sport/the-oddest-suvs-ever-built/

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