The car that you did drive (an upscale VW) could be the subject of another question/rant on brand positioning. I don’t understand VW’s attempt to take the brand upscale, particularly when they also own Audi, which is already in that niche, and a few super high end brands (Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini). VW isn’t alone is inexplicably going upscale. Wikipedia currently says this about Saturn:

The Saturn brand will be repositioned in the upper-end of the family car market, stopping just south of entry-level luxury. Volkswagen is in the same market position that GM wants to take Saturn (only going as high as the Passat). Saturn faces a struggle in achieving a premium image. When GM showed the Aura to a focus group with no badge on it, participants gave it a rating of 5/5 in terms of desirability and style. When they discovered that they were looking at a Saturn, the average rating dropped to 2.5/5.

Bizarre.

Gordon:

My observations are limited to ten states in the last couple years (CA, IL, MA, MO, NV, NY, OR, TX (Austin only), WA, and WI) and I probably don’t notice the difference between a SUV and giant-SUV. I should probably remove “large” before “SUVs” above. I suspect that much of any actual difference in ownership of large & expensive vehicles in the SF bay area versus elsewhere can be explained by this area’s relatively high income. Regardless, consumers across the country have opted for larger vehicles in the past ~20 years.