Yeah so a hatchback on stilts. Both of those cars predate the industry term "crossover" by decades. Sometimes their height is enabled by being RWD, you can only lift a FWD car so high before the CV axle angle is too extreme.

I've been known to take sedans and wagons to places crossover drivers wouldn't dare go pretty often, once or twice needed shovels and a friend with 4WD with lockers to pull me out.

If you don't do off roading, you don't need an SUV. If you don't need an SUV, you should get a wagon or hatch like you already have.

If you live in a place where you can get snowed in, An SUV might help you out, but most crossovers are useless

Yeah I also looked it up and it doesn't really seem like there's a consensus on whether they count as SUVs. So I guess we're both kinda right.

Either way fuck cars that are bigger than they need to be. That's the ultimate point.

That Lada is also a lot smaller than that camera angle makes it look. Way smaller than a Wrangler, probably even smaller than a Suzuki Sidekick. People called that a 3-door hatchback when it came out.

But it came out in Europe, long before the differentiation between body-on-frame vs unibody became a significant cost consideration in America through our domestic CAFE standards legislation.