When ROAD & TRAVEL Magazine editors first slid behind the controls of this smallish, five-passenger, car-based sport utility vehicle our initial reaction was "nice." Good looking inside and out. A lot of intuitive feel for how it was laid out. An easy step in to our out of the vehicle, no matter where one was sitting.

Then other things started to make a lot of sense. When the kids' lanky basketball buddies want a ride home from practice, they won't feel scrunched up in the rear seat. When we go overboard buying flats of those gorgeous, fragile impatiens at the local garden shop, we really will have a place to set them down during the gentle drive home without the danger of having them mashed by a tippy bag of groceries.

It's things such as that, we'll detail a bit later, that make us go "aah" instead of "naah" when we put our vehicles to use. We could call it all a part of what makes Equinox a thinking woman's sport utility, set in a handsome, edgy package with definite hints of the crisply-defined, authoritative GM family DNA most evident in Chevy's relative, Cadillac.

After logging in a test in the all-wheel-drive LT version, ROAD & TRAVEL Magazine's Publisher, Courtney Caldwell, had high praise for the Equinox, which she cited as being, "well laid out for the needs of women." To which she added, "I like the exterior a lot. I thought it was very cool and edgy. It seems to possess a similar elegance, at least in style, to the baby Lexus SUV."

Little surprises alone in the Equinox should win kudos for this long-awaited crossover. With creature comforts and lifestyle amenities taking center stage, the Equinox is a vehicle designed to pamper as well as protect, and with its longest-in-class wheelbase (at 112.5 inches), handle easily as well as hustle.

Chevy has a definite advantage by introducing this more populist sport utility at a time "smaller," and "less gas hungry" should get attention from American consumers numbed by the stratospheric cost of filling up just to get from here to there.

While at press time we hadn't tested, long-term, Chevy's mileage claim, we logged in a respectable number of miles without needing a petrol boost every few gas stations. On both the LT front-wheel-drive and on-demand all-wheel-drive versions of our test vehicles, powered by the only engine Equinox offers (a 185-horsepower, 3.4-liter, V-6 with five-speed automatic), Chevy claims average fuel economy of 19 miles a gallon for city driving and 25 miles a gallon while out on the road. Those stats are far more respectable than the low teens that are the best mileage numbers some larger sport utilities can muster.

As any errant male can probably tell you, women who often are the human tote-bags for entire families not just themselves, tend to carry lots of stuff. There's grocery stuff, and handbag stuff, and gloves, scarves, umbrellas stuff. There's a need for holders for coffee, soda or a bottle of imported Evian or domestic spring water. There's a need for DVDs, video games and even swat room for shushing down the second-row terrors who can turn a calm ride into temper tantrum territory when young, worn-out bodies are past their bedtime.

(CONTINUED...)