But none of the explanations cover why BMW make the ugliest cars on the road.
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Nah, just a rebranding 
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Current car design theme seems to be the house brick with LEDs.
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Which makes for a noisy journey when driving at speed on the motorway. Our 20+ year old merc had much less wind noise.
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I do wish John would express himself fully and not hold back.
I have never had a catcat and why would I want one, in France, the home of cars that can go anywhere witout driving all 4 wheels.
The Saxo we brought here, built in Spain, bought in England, but inspired in France, came to a halt on a forest track once, one wheel in a deep rut, the other in another one, and the sump flat on a muddy lump in the middle. But there was firm ground to the side so I put the steering on full lock towards it and engaged 2nd gear. With a touch of my foot that would have graced my dear wife’s ballet career, I gently blew on the throttle. The little lady, with no fuss, gently climbed up the walls and floated onto solid ground. We carried on to destination. 
Even yesterday, in the Partner on the narrow road along the valley, I saw a lady on a bike approaching accompanying a small child on a wobbly little one. I slowed to a crawl and pulled onto the grass at the side, just as I do for dogs as well, but the right wheel dropped into the field. Once again grounded in the middle. Forget the auto, select M and put it in 2nd, engage ESP, think of Fran in her tutu, and gently back onto the tarmac. No fuss, no bother, who needs 4 wheel drive? 
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When you live in a valley and it snows, 4x4 can be quite helpful. 
Only when equipped with suitable tires.
You don’t need to live in one, you just have to drive in one, and I have, and have still managed to get where I want. 
Yes, when we lived in Grenoble forty plus years ago the idea of needing chains or even winter tyres to mount to ski stations on the weekend, including high ones like Les Deux Alpes and Alpe d’Huez, would have been laughable.
I had a few Discoveries back in the 1990s when I did a lot of towing. I must admit that there were times I was amazed by what the 4X4 system was capable of. I pulled quite a few cars out of icy car parks in ski resorts when it was too slippery to walk. It was hard to understand where it got its grip from. The most impressive rescue was in a campsite in Portugal where a car had sunk into soft sand. Yet again it was impossible to understand why the Land Rover didn’t do the same thing.
Top Gear once tested a Panda 4X4 on an off road testing track where it behaved impeccably. They then took a standard FWD Panda around the same track and it did it as well. As Corona has pointed out the correct tyres make a huge difference.
The lawn in front of my house has a very slight slope and when I had a trailer sailer my FWD Golf would tow it up there without a problem, in the dry. If there was any dampness even dew it couldn’t cope. The same was true on slipways. A 4X4 never had a problem. For most people having a 4X4 is unnecessary but for people who drive regularly in slippery conditions they can be a lifeline.
The entrance to my gate slopes upwards and can be slippery in certain conditions, so I reverse in rather than drive forwards, This throws the weight of the engine over the drive front wheels and just for good measure I press the ESP button (no idea what that is but it works like a limited slip differential) and never fail to get home. 
…quite a few people who live and work where I am, including us need them. ‘We’ live 5k’s off a main road and to get here, have to negotiate rocky, muddy bumpy DFCI tracks often swept away during rain and blocked by fallen trees.
I 100% agree that the majority of 4x4/SUV owners have them for some strange reason all to do with a false image or whatever, but these vehicles are mostly not suitable for long term use off road. Too much plastic trim, all show and no trousers. Too many electronics, electronic displays etc. They would all crack and fall off after a fashion what with the vibrations and bumps. Wide wide-boy tyres and alloy rims are also useless and the sheer weight means they get bogged down easily.
My experience, if you can’t fix it with a hammer and a set of spanners and wrenches and Duck Tape, it’s useless.
Most of us red-necks here in the Cévennes have a combo of fecked Citroen Partners, old La Post vans, Toyota pick-ups and Lada Niva’s. All very beaten up and scratched. Landy are useless, and the old ones rusted to bits. We have a Niva for when the going gets tough and a Forrester for longer journeys all shoe with AT tyres.
I’m waiting for the time when someone makes a small 4x4 electric with mine 220mm ground clearance, no fancy electronics and displays with simple big button tech. Needs to be fixable at home too.
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Snow tyres will make a 2wd car better than a 4wd with summer tyres, but if you only have summer tyres then 4wd is better.
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I have to admit that I am impressed by cars that can drive on roads that aren’t there any more and also climb over fallen trees. 
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I think I’d like a hovercraft type car 
or wings and propellers 
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Toyota Bz4 x ?
Back in my student days, after some weeks of grape picking in Beaujolais and then nearer the coast, we were enjoying soem R&R “savage” camping on the beach beside Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. One day a Citroen DS came along the beach a bit too close to the water’s edge and got bogged down. The driver couldn’t get it out and left it overnight. The following day it had sunk up to the sills so they tried using a tractor to get it out, but it didn’t work. The day after it had sunk to the bottom of the wheel arches so they used a mother of a tracked tractor to try to pull it out, but no joy. Of course by this stage it was impossible to break the seal between the floor pan and the wet sand. By the time we left, a week or so later, the DS had fully disappeared.
Those first generation Discos, my wife had one in the M/E, were based on the original Range Rover chassis, which was a very tough and competent bit of kit. Even if bits did fall off regularly. You would consider using one for a vehicle dependent expedition The ones with air suspension you wouldn’t risk taking out of the Waitrose carpark.
That was the only 4X4 we had until ten or so years later we had snow at our house in France and neither our RWD cars nor our FWD cars could make it up the drive. So I traded in a new Golf GTD we had just bought for a Tiguan 4X4 which I felt was really just a 4X4 Golf.
We traded that in for a new Tiguan in 2017 but Tiguans had grown a bit by then and it was now a mid sized SUV. However VW had changed the 4X4 bias from RWD as in the original Tiguan to FWD bias. A bloody stupid thing to do as it ruined the handling dynamics, and of course something you only found out after you’d bought. I did order one with 240BHP so it was a bit of fun to drive, but not as much as if they had left the 4X4 alone.
I’d been to the Frankfurt motor show in 2016 and seen the new Tiguan and drove it later that year in Hamburg. It was obvious that it was crying out for a hybrid configuration, small petrol engine driving the front wheels and an electric motor for the back. But when the specs came out that configuration wasn’t an option, though it is now. So I use that as my barometer of how far behind VW is. They are delivering 2017 spec cars now, eight years too late. The Chinese will eat them for lunch. Which is ironic in a way 
All this summer tyre, winter tyre business is IMO overrated, unless one does live up the side of a mountain.
It’s a great opportunity to sell more wheels and more tyres and storage and swapping services. The secondhand BMW X2 that we bought for my daughter to use while she was here came with a second set of wheels with winter tyres. Plus a set of chains in the boot. Total overkill in the Var IMO.
I run summer tyres all year round, I wouldn’t mind using all season tyres either, but I cannot envisage when I’d ever run winter tyres, much less M&S (not the shop ) or snow tyres, Three Peak Mountain Snowflake (3PMSF).
If I lived in the Alpes that would be a different matter. Even though Tiguan number two did very well on snowy roads in that area on summer tyres, even towing a trailer.
