PRESTIGE 4X4 COMPARISON - FIRST AND FOURMOST

As a nation, we're expanding fast. Average waistlines are inching upwards as we succumb to increasingly sedentary lifestyles and calorie stuffed convenience foods. It's not just us either, it's our cars as well and no sector better exemplifies this than luxury 4x4s. In its first generation guise, a Range Rover took up less space on the road than a current generation Freelander, supposedly a 'compact 4x4'. If our appetite for supersizing our sports utility vehicles has grown, so has the choice available to us. All terrain conspicuous consumption has never been so mouth watering.

THE CONTENDERS

In order to find out which luxury 4x4 rules the roost, many hours were spent wheedling six of the best from various manufacturers. The lynchpin around which any luxury 4x4 test revolves is still the Range Rover, and despite the popularity of diesel versions, the definitive model is powered by a 4.4-litre V8 in Vogue SE guise. This model very much set the tone for the rest of the contenders, all powered by gas-guzzling petrol engines. There's a time and a place for fuel economy. This wasn't to be it.

Next in terms of expense is Porsche's Cayenne Turbo V8. This 4.8-litre behemoth may have rather unconventional looks but the promise of class leading road manners and Porsche build quality had us intrigued. BMW's X5 is the car that really jump started the luxury 4x4 class back into life when it appeared in 2000. Again, we opt for an octet of cylinders and xDrive50i and its 408bhp twin-turbo V8 petrol engine. The big BMW managed to steal the thunder from Mercedes' M-class range and a series of subsequent revisions to the Stuttgarters 4x4 has seen it enjoy something of a renaissance. In ML 63 AMG guise, the big Benz brings a lot of power to the party wit...