Here's a draft of the response to Car & Driver. I will double-check the references to their articles, the original price, etc. from home tonight. But feel free to suggest any revisions, additions, & redactions...
Dear Ed.,
In regard to your commentary on the 2011 Land Rover LRX ["24 Cars Worth Waiting For" June 2008], there are quite a number of us who remember the Isuzu VehiCROSS quite well, seeing as we still drive one everyday.
Many of us on the VehiCROSS forums were taken aback by your apparent swipe at our beloved “stylish coupe-SUV,” but also flattered by the back-handed compliment. We assume you were implying that the VehiCROSS fizzled as a model (it only sold about 4100 units in three years). We counter that it was always intended to be a very small production run and sold at a very high price (~$29,500 in 1999 dollars). In fact, you informed us of this in your own road test [C/D, April 1999], discussing how the body cladding pieces were molded by a process of very limited longevity (who has forgotten about the Isuzu VehiCROSS, indeed?).
The Isuzu “VX” stands out as one of the first and few radical concept vehicles to make it to the market in largely its car-show form. The design was so far ahead of its time that we VX owners are still consistently asked what model it is and whether it’s an ’08 or ’09 – almost ten years after its debut! (Those of us with over 100k on the clock are particularly amused by the shocked jaw-drops that accompany our answers to such inquiries.)
Of course, none of us outside Isuzu knows if the VehiCROSS was considered a success or failure within the company, or by what criteria that was judged, but it certainly is not appropriate to use it as an example of what Land Rover should not do with their similarly striking and unusual LRX concept.
– Sent on behalf of the members of the www.vehicross.info internet forum, as well as VX owners everywhere.
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