Fancy trucks are taking over driveways from Grosse Pointe to Beverly Hills to West Palm Beach and all points in between. People who used to spend big green on premium sedans are, instead, opting for luxury-lined, truck-based station wagons because they've somehow gotten it into their heads that the overweight, gas-guzzling, ill-handling pigs are the thing to drive these days. Whatever. Soon we'll all wake up and the whole SUV craze will subside.

In the meantime, we're compelled to report our findings after spending a week behind the wheels of five luxo-utes of various size and nationality. Eligibility criteria for the test of premium-brand SUVs was a base Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) of $40,000 or greater, four-wheel drive and a V8 engine under the hood. The only vehicle we were unable to source for the contest was BMW's hot new X5 4.4i. We did, however, drive that truck shortly after the test, using the same roads and trails that served as our playground for this comparison flog, and you can read our thoughts on that vehicle by visiting Road Test: 2000 BMW X5

Lincoln wasn't able to provide us with a four-wheel drive Navigator; all they had in Los Angeles was a two-wheeler, which is the champagne-colored vehicle you'll see in most of the photography for the story. We also used the 2000 model for evaluation that did not involve driving impressions. For testing, we sourced a 1999 four-by from our friends at Event Vehicles Incorporated. That Navigator had the same 300-horsepower, In-Tech V8 that is found in 2000 models, and our driving impressions and performance data are based on that vehicle. Pricing is for a 2000 4WD model.

While on the phone with Event Vehicles, they offered us the use of a nearly new 2000 Cadillac Escalade, which we had originally left off our short list since it is redesigned for 2001, and will be based on the massively improved Chevrolet Tahoe platform. But a free truck is a free truck, so we grabbed the Caddy too, just for kicks. You can contact Event Vehicles for your needs at http://www.eventvehicles.com, but they likely will ask you to pony up some cash for your rental.

Once the trucks were rounded up, we squeezed them out of our underground parking garage in Santa Monica, Calif., and headed north to the Santa Clarita Valley and the Angeles National Forest. There, during a long day of sun and vicious rain, we drove a loop that included city streets, freeway, two-lane road and a steep, rugged off-road trail to find out who was king of the luxo-ute hill. Our opinions, as always, may not reflect yours.