Saturn is marketing a high-performance version of its compact VUE sport utility, called the VUE Red Line. And although it uses the same 250-horsepower Honda engine of other VUE V6 models, it does have a sport-tuned suspension and a lowered chassis. Lowering the chassis and sport-tuning the suspension are crucial elements of creating a high-performance SUV, by the way. Already, because of their high profiles, SUVs are inherently more prone to rollovers than cars, and when high-power drivetrains are put into SUVs, the rollover danger increases significantly because people will think they can drive them as though they are sports cars.

For the most part, you cannot safely drive an SUV like a sports car, and anyone who tries soon may find the vehicle sliding off the road upside down. Probably the only high-performance SUV I've driven that I've felt comfortable in at high speeds is the Cayenne, which actually does handle like a sports car. But unless the TrailBlazer SS has a true sport suspension and is lower to the ground than the normal TrailBlazer, trying to drive it as though it were a sports car would be folly.

GM says it will give the TrailBlazer SS model a sport suspension, however, and will fine-tune it at a speedway in Germany -- the Nurburgring track, where Mercedes, BMW and even Cadillac test the suspensions of their cars. The SS model is planned for a fall 2005 introduction as a 2006 model. No prices have been suggested yet, but expect to pay a premium of several thousand dollars to get the performance models. This push toward more-powerful engines in everyday SUVs might just be coming at the wrong time, however.

With the high gasoline prices we're experiencing, and the prospect that they will stay high forever, building SUVs that have more power -- and therefore use more gasoline -- might be the wrong thing to do. Consumers already are looking for vehicles that sip, rather than gulp, precious fuel. So why would these high-performance models make sense in today's automotive climate? Probably because there are a lot of people who must buy practical family vehicles such as SUVs and minivans and who would rather be driving sports cars or at least sport sedans and coupes. Automakers like to give customers what they want, so why not combine the attributes of a sports car or sport sedan into the body of a sport utility, they apparently are thinking.