Awhile back, Carwow’s Mat Watson teamed up with Alex Kersten and his pal Taylor to check out three old, cheap, and beat up luxury SUVs: an E53 BMW X5, a first-gen Porsche Cayenne, and an L322-gen Range Rover. All three were in pretty terrible shape so, naturally, Mat Watson decided to buy them. He bought all three for a total of £5,000 and decided to put them through a series a grueling off-road tests in this new video.
In the test, Watson was in the Cayenne, while Taylor drove the Range Rover, and Carwow veteran Yianni was in the BMW X5. The BMW X5 and Porsche Caynne both had V8 engines. BMW’s was a 4.4-liter V8 and the Porsche had 4.5-liter V8. While the Range Rover had a 3.0-liter six-cylinder diesel. Obviously all three cars had automatic transmissions and all-wheel drive but the Range Rover was the only one with a proper four-wheel drive system and locking differentials.
Shockingly, both the BMW and Porsche, despite being fancy luxury SUVs, actually handled most of the off-road tests well. Most of that came down to their driving, as Taylor was a bit cautious and safe in the Range Rover, while Watson and Yianni were reckless and destructive in the Porsche and BMW, respectively. That devil-may-care attitude, combined with their big V8s, made their SUVs surprisingly capable through the tests. The “but” is that their cars were pretty much completely destroyed at the end of the day. Neither the Porsche nor the BMW would be safe to drive on the road afterward and I’d be surprised if either could actually function on the road. They were both wrecked. The Range Rover wouldn’t be ideal to drive on the road afterward, but it would probably drive.
In the end, the winner will surprise you because it was the last car I thought it would be. I won’t spoil it because it’s a genuinely funny video that’s worth your time. However, I will say that the winner was not the Range Rover, which was easily the favorite to win before the day started.
