I Need A Cool Dog Hauler That's Not A Boring Crossover! What Car Should I Buy?

Ryan and his wife are from Nashville, and they adopt retired racing greyhounds. They tried to get a cheap dog hauler with a 2008 Chevy Uplander, but that didn't pan out. Ryan wants to trade his AMG sedan for something that can move the pups in comfort, but is still a reasonably fun car to drive. With a budget up to $70,000, what car should he buy?

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Here is the scenario.

I have a 2018 Mercedes AMG C43 sedan and my wife has a 2012 Mini Cooper S that we both love. The problem is that we have two giant greyhounds that don't fit in either car. To solve this problem, we acquired a 2008 Chevrolet Uplander five years ago to cart the dogs around but it developed multiple oil leaks and is at the end of its useful life.

My wife has steadfastly refused to drive anything larger than a Mini Cooper (no, not even a Clubman) and I definitely don't want to invest in another "dog car" alongside our daily drivers. I'd like to trade my C43 for a dog hauler without just getting into some boring crossover since it will also be my daily driver.

My wife and I don't have kids, but do adopt retired racing greyhounds. We also have seven nieces and nephews that visit occasionally. We both like to drive and don't want something dull. At the same time, we drive far less than we used to now that we both work from home primarily. I expect that to change somewhat over the next year (hopefully).

I have a budget up to $70,000 for something large enough to hold two 80lb greyhounds, less boring than a typical crossover, some enthusiast credibility.

Quick Facts:

Budget: up to $70,000

Location: Nashville, Tennessee 

Daily Driver: Yes

Wants: Big enough for two Greyhounds, still fun,

Doesn't want: A boring crossover

With two decent-sized pups, no matter how you shake this it's going to be hard to avoid a crossover or a van. But there are some crossovers that don't quite behave like crossovers. The best example of this is the Porsche Cayenne. While it may have that crossover shape, the engineers in Stuttgart inject some witchcraft into these machines to make them drive and feel way smaller. I was at a Porsche driving event where an instructor hustled a GTS trim around a track at full tilt and that car didn't flinch

The Cayenne is available in a variety of trims, but the Turbo is probably your best bang for your buck. Here is a nice 2020 model that claims to be "Certified," but that doesn't add up as it's being sold by a GMC store. This is the "coupe" version with the more sloped roof that might pose a problem for a dog crate, but if the greyhounds aren't so confined, they should be fine with the back seats lowered.

I'm not sure how you've managed to keep a Chevrolet Uplander on the road this long, but good for you. Clearly, a minivan works well as a dog-hauler, and with so many niblings coming to visit, it probably wouldn't hurt to go for something with a few more seats than you need on a daily basis. But what vehicle could possibly offer the luxury and excitement of your C43, while also giving you the space and practicality of a minivan? Even with a $70,000 budget, that's going to be a tough one.

Or it would be if the least-expensive pre-owned Lucid Gravity I could find wasn't listed for $70,905. Buying it would involve flying to Dallas and then road tripping it back, but maybe you could combine trips and rescue another retired racing dog while you're there. It's "just" a Gravity Touring, so it "only" makes 560 horsepower and 811 pound-feet of torque, but that's still enough to give it an official 0-60 time of 4.0 seconds. Not bad at all. Plus, the Gravity drives way better than you'd expect based on the styling.

The Gravity would come with a few downsides, of course. It's not quite as cool as your Mercedes, and Lucid owners have had some issues with the software. You may also miss the Uplander's sliding rear door. That said, the Gravity is infinitely cooler than the Uplander, and Lucid's reportedly working hard to fix its software problems. I'd like to think they're solvable, and the Cosmos launch won't kill the entire company, but you'd definitely be taking a gamble here. And what's life without a little risk? Heck, you may even be able to use your concerns to negotiate the price down even further. Either way, I bet the dogs will love it.

A Cayenne Turbo is a solid choice, Ryan, but I think I've got something better for you. Still German, still a performance SUV, but perhaps with a slightly better reliability reputation. Well, marginally. Allow me to present the BMW X5 M.

Is the X5 M going to be more comfortable than the Cayenne? No. Not even close. Will it be faster? Maybe! I don't know what year Cayenne Tom is suggesting (little peek behind the Jalopnik curtain), but it's entirely possible one or the other will be faster depending on which is newer. But y'know what the X5 does for sure have over the Cayenne? Looks.

The X5M is pretty, in that muscle-luxury way that BMW seems better than anyone at. The Cayenne is sleeker, but in a way that always feels too aquatic than me. The X5 is the prettier car, and that's what really matters when it's usually parked in your garage while you work from home. Get yourself an X5 M — this one, or any of the many others you can find at this price point — and look down your nose at the Porsches.