There are some brands of car that seldom cause you to call your vehicle breakdown insurance provider. Maserati is probably one of them. Another one is Jaguar and yet another is Porsche. But all three have gone out on a limb and entered a market which might be considered the antithesis of their fortes, making some of us wonder if they can maintain their good names.

And yet all three high end brands have indeed got themselves, or are going to get themselves, into the SUV market. Porsche has blazed a trail by showing that just because your entire image is based on superb sports cars with great road handling, it doesn't mean you can't build an off-road.

Jaguar and Maserati are in the early stages of getting their SUVs to the public and they will of course be keen to make a similar impact to that of Porsche.

But what is an SUV exactly? When you take a look at the Wikipedia explanation, you discover a range of words which are not normally associated with some of the world's most prestigious car brands. In essence, an SUV – which stands for Sports Utility Vehicle – is a kind of station wagon or pick up truck. An SUV, it says, will normally have a pretension or an actual ability to go off-road.

But the truth is whoever buys the new Jaguar and Maserati SUVs, and whoever continues to buy the Porsche Cayenne, very few are likely to take to the hills, cruise through muddy rivers or perform the kind of stunts we used to see in Land Rover adverts(particularly if the owner lives in a leafy home county). So what remains is a very big, very comfortable but very expensive-to-run pick-up truck. But perhaps I'm just jealous.