Keep on trucking

IS BIGGER really better? That it is has been a seemingly immutable truth for American motorists since the finned dinosaurs of the 1950s roamed the Earth. Despite a period after the oil shocks of the 1970s when small briefly did look beautiful, the spirit of the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado convertible has been reincarnated in the massive (and massively gas-guzzling) Cadillac Escalade and similar so-called sport-utility vehicles (SUVs). Indeed, many analysts believe the success of SUVs has been a populist reaction against America's restrictive fuel-economy laws, which force manufacturers to sell small, efficient passenger cars, but permit them to get away with ever larger light trucks.