Little Land Bruisers: 1998 Compact SUV Comparison Test

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In which we discover that a refined car can not only be turned into a nice wagon, but can also win a sport-ute contest.

"To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction." —Newton's 311-year-old law works out­side the physics lab. Consider the President's job-approval ratings following the Lewinsky, uh, exposure, or the explo­sion of I-Hate-Gates websites in the wake of Microsoft's runaway marketing suc­cess.

Newton's law also works in the auto industry. Take, for example, sport-utility vehicles. As they gobble up an ever-larger share of the U.S. market—last year, sport­-utes accounted for a record 16 percent of car and light-truck sales—reaction against them is mounting. Greens have begun railing against their higher carbon-dioxide emissions and their fuel-hungry natures.

The 1996 Toyota RAV4 was the first SUV based on a car platform to enjoy widespread sales success on both sides of the Pacific. Its popularity quickly attracted me-too vehicles to the market, like the Civic-based Honda CR-V, the Impreza­-based Subaru Forester, and several more that are still on Big Three drawing boards.

To see which of these little utes struck the best balance between sport and utility, we sounded the call for a roundup. Invited were five-door models , sporting four-wheel drive and five-speed manual trans­missions. The price cap was set at $21,000, but inopportune optioning caused the Forester, the CR-V, and the RAV4 to creep over that limit. We excused the lame-duck Sidekick/Tracker from our test as an all-­new model is just around the corner.

 

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