This is by far the hottest market segment right now. Crowded with more than 20 vehicles, midsize SUVs vary in size and type but nearly all seat five adults and offer V6 or V8 engines. Our Best Buy is the car-based Lexus RX 300. Though it lacks a low range in 4WD mode, it's the most carlike to drive and offers all of the versatility of a truck-based model.

Our Recommended choices are all traditional SUVs: the Dodge Durango, which offers optional third-row seating; the best-selling Ford Explorer clone Mercury Mountaineer; the Teutonic Mercedes-Benz M-Class; the utilitarian Nissan Xterra; and the refined but expensive Toyota 4Runner.

Discovery's calendar-year sales were basically flat in 2000 at just under 21,900--a bit surprising for a moderately priced SUV in a mostly strong national economy. The economy has since stumbled, of course, and so have Discovery sales, enough that Land Rover resorted to incentives this past spring, an unusual step for the snooty British brand.

Ford Motor Company acquired Land Rover last year from Germany's BMW. The change of owners has apparently not affected Discovery's scheduled 2004-model redesign, but Ford will no doubt change various parts of what BMW started--including some BMW mechanical parts--and that could delay introduction by several months, perhaps to late fall 2003.

Specifics are anyone's guess right now, but the next Disco should follow past models by sharing some structure and components with the upscale Range Rover, which itself is being redesigned for a U.S. launch sometime in 2002. Sources are still predicting a new long-wheelbase Discovery in addition to a regular-length wagon. Styling may again be evolutionary at best, if spy photos of the next Range Rover are any indication.