Range Rover's Evoque, especially the three-door model, blazes new styling territory — a feat in the second century of the automobile.

The phrase compact luxury crossover is so drab, so marketing-speak boring, that just typing it makes me want to find the nearest conference room and toss an ergo­nomically correct office chair through a PowerPoint presentation. A crossover is an amorphous straddler of worlds, neither car nor truck — kind of fast, sort of efficient, basically good-looking, and acceptably luxurious. This all-things-to-all-people formula seems to work, especially when it comes with a prestigious badge. The most popular Lexus is the crossover RX, which shares the guts of the ES sedan but outsells it nearly two to one. The RX is a brilliant execution of mainstream appeal, but so was Everybody Loves Raymond. And what the crossover category needs is a Breaking Bad. Or two.

Thankfully, it appears that BMW and Range Rover have decided to spike the crossover punch with two 100-proof shots of personality. The redesigned X3 and new Evoque cost about the same ($50,000 with some options) but represent the differing worldviews of their creators: The BMW emphasizes on-road performance; the Range Rover majors in fashion with a minor in off-road ability.

I’m probably one of the few people who have had an opportunity to test both machines to their seldom-accessed extremes — the X3 on a track, the Evoque off-road. While the chances of an X3 owner visiting a road course are probably even slimmer than those of an Evoque owner fording a deepwater crossing, it’s refreshing that the vehicles bother to pick up the thread of brand tradition.

The BMW is a covert ass-hauler. Its turbocharged, 300-horsepower motor has two more cylinders than the Range Rover’s turbo four; its eight-speed transmission offers two more gears. A rear-biased all-wheel-drive system helps deliver a scalding 0-to-60 time of 5.5 seconds, equal to that of the BMW sedan. At the track, the X3 really did feel like a tall sports sedan, hitting 110 mph on the straight. When you see an X3 in a school car-pool line, know that it’s a tiger in a cage.

I have no doubt that the 300-horsepower X3 would dust the 240-horsepower Range Rover on a winding road. But venture off that road, and the roles would likely be reversed. I drove the Evoque over hill and dale in muddy Wales, and its off-road abilities do not shame the Range Rover name. The terrain-response button lets you choose chassis settings to match your off-road milieu — and with tires pushed out to the corners, you can drop into ditches without ripping off the rear bumper on your way out. Puddles that sloshed halfway up the doors were no impediment. All of which is important for credibility reasons but as practically irrelevant as the X3’s lack of brake fade after a 100-mph dive into a hairpin. What really matters for the Evoque is how it looks. And it looks like nothing else on the road.

The Evoque, especially the three-door model, blazes new styling territory — a feat in the second century of the automobile. The roof rakes down, and the bodywork races up toward the rear, nearly meeting at the skimpy scythe of a back window. (How do you see out? Learn to use the five exterior cameras.) Any claustrophobia is relieved by the largest sunroof this side of Safeco Field’s retractable dome. It’s a reliably wow-inducing moment when you open the sunshade and it just keeps going, past the backseat. The Evoque is filled with tricks like that, from the shift knob that motors up out of the console (a design borrowed from corporate cousin Jaguar) to the way it projects a sketch of itself on the ground when you unlock it at night. The Evoque’s turbocharged four-cylinder helps earn it a pragmatic 28 mpg on the highway, yet the whole package exudes a strong sense of fun.

So here’s your $50,000 decision: Do you go for the muscle-bound German, single-mindedly bent on honoring the promise of the Ultimate Driving Machine? Or the whimsical Brit, a design study that’s happy to spend weekends pawing through the Welsh bogs? Neither of them tries to appeal to everyone. And in the world of the compact luxury crossover, that’s what I call progress.

The all-new Beetle is an affordable, reliably entertaining car that gets decent fuel economy and can accommodate the detritus of a young family’s weekend escape. Photo: Courtesy Volkswagen of America.

The 2012 Volkswagen Beetle does not have a bud vase. This is important, because when the New Beetle debuted in 1998, its dashboard featured a small vase for flowers. You could also get wheels shaped like flowers and stick-on eyelashes for the front end. That Beetle was a genuine hit, but how many male buyers did VW lose because of those chick-car connotations? While women will happily purchase a hairy-knuckled troglodyte of a truck, men are reluctant to breach the opposite divide. The moment an average guy sees two of any given car parked outside a Curves is the moment that car gets subconsciously crossed off the shopping list. VW has obviously contemplated this problem, because the 2012 Beetle attempts to drag VW’s retro hatchback toward the middle ground of unisex appeal.

Car companies are typically loath to admit flaws in any strategy they’ve ever pursued, but VW acknowledges that the 1998 Beetle courted women at the expense of men. Its challenge, designwise, was to inject some athleticism into a soft, rounded shape that’s always been essentially cuddly. Physically, that means a wider track and body, a longer hood, a rising shoulder line, and a lower roof. But can an infusion of design machismo reverse the image projected by the million New Beetles already on the road? And if it can’t, should that even matter?

Personally, I don’t believe in the concept of a chick car. But then, I’m a car guy, and car guys tend to view their driving choices through the prism of performance rather than public opinion. If you buy into the notion that cars hold any kind of gender identification, you might arbitrarily deny yourself a great car. I’d be happy to own a Mini Cooper S because it’s a riot to drive, a pint-size, turbocharged BMW. And the same goes for Mazda’s Miata, which has become Hollywood shorthand for a guy who is either effeminate or clueless or both. (See MacGruber.) I care about handling, fuel economy, the shape of the torque curve — not whether some segment of know-nothings on the street would presume I’m driving my wife’s car. Which brings me back to the 2012 Beetle. Although the New Beetle was about as feminized as mainstream cars get, 40 percent of its owners were men. The redesigned car won’t have to swing the pendulum far to accomplish its mission.

To form my own opinion of the bubbly Volkswagen’s gestalt, I packed my wife and offspring, three suitcases, and a stroller into a 2.5L Beetle and set out for the weekend. From behind the wheel, the Beetle feels a lot like a Golf or Jetta, which makes sense because beneath the skin it is a Golf or Jetta: All three cars use the same 170-horsepower 2.5-liter five-cylinder or 200-horsepower 2.0-liter turbo four. So the difference comes down to the styling, and how that styling makes you feel when you’re behind the wheel.

And what I felt was unapologetic. Stylistically, this Beetle tries hard to recall the original tin can while forgetting the more recent model. The 18-inch disc wheels are aluminum but look like steel hubcaps, and the Kaeferfach glove box is a nod to the upright one in the original Beetle. The Earth-friendly crowd who embraced the original Beetle will be excited to learn that the new car’s leather interior harmed no animals, for it is not actual leather — though it fooled me until I read the spec sheet.

The Beetle starts at less than 20 grand; with a navi system, automatic transmission, giant sunroof, and Fender sound system, you’re still under $26,000. That makes it a little more expensive than an equivalent Golf, but the Beetle is still an essentially pragmatic package: an affordable, reliably entertaining car that gets decent fuel economy and can accommodate the detritus of a young family’s weekend escape. Yet, with the roofline and fenders looking flatter and more purposeful, this Beetle has kind of a funhouse-Porsche thing going on; there’s a lot of visual pop for the price.

But will the upgraded styling convince more men to buy one? Perhaps, but you shouldn’t care either way. If your tastes run to five-cylinder motors and retro glove boxes, you should indulge those tastes without a moment’s consideration for the ignoramuses on the street. After all, the Beetle is a machine, not a person. It does not have a gender. Or a bud vase.

It’s amazing what rising petroleum prices can do. Throw in crowded city streets, congestion charges, differential taxing policies, tax rebates for small dimensions with small engines and you end up with the inevitable – small cars. Now, while there are many millions around the globe content with Maruti Swifts and Hyundai i10s, there are plenty still who want some more: some more style, some more features, some more badge snobbery.

It is to this discerning lot that luxury car manufacturers have turned their attention. Chic retro revivals notwithstanding, in the form of MINI, Fiat 500 and VW Beetle, we now have something, um, a little more ‘regular’. Enter the Mercedes A-Class, BMW 1 Series and Audi A1.