I haven't read the dozens of posts here, so forgive me if it's been discussed (and where it is, if you now).

Why the push for an SUV? I thought about this a bit over the last few days. I live in a fairly rural area of MO, and in an evacuation situation, there aren't a ton of roads or gas stations. So, I can either cut across fields, or stick with the few roads there are. I think I'm more inclined to stick with a car that can get 30-35 mpg than one that gets, hopefully, 20mpg. The smaller and hybrid SUVs might do better. But, if we're all sitting in traffic idling and not moving fast, I'd prefer a car that won't need a top off every few hundred miles. This rings even more true for me if I'm carrying extra gas. 5 gallons for 150 miles, or 75?

In an ideal world, my girlfriend's Camry would tow my Explorer until we needed to bail out cross country

I find medium-full sized SUVs tend to have comparatively larger gas tanks than smaller cars, so even if they do use a bit more fuel they tend to have a greater overall range.

For example, the Chevrolet Tahoe has a cruising range of 468 miles. The Corolla only has a cruising range of 435. So, even though the Tahoe gets about half the gas mileage it can go a greater distance before you have to stop for gas.

If you really want to go far my new Dodge dump truck has a 52 gallon diesel tank with a 22 gallon auxiliary tank. I can go over 1000 miles highway before I need to fill up.

The main reason I don't like cars and small SUV's is they are all unibody. What happens if you are evacuating and someone comes too close when they cut you off and you get in a minor fender bender? With a unibody vehilce your now dead in the water but in a frame based vehilce you can keep going and fix the bodyt damage later.
Fuel capacity is another issue. Smaller cars and SUV's have smaller gas tanks so even if you can get better milage you don't have as much range. Then sitting in traffic the small cars don't get very good milage either.
Also towing, a car like your camry can't safely tow. safely is the key word here, I'm seen people tow with front wheel drive cars and I always keep faw away from them.

In the US you almost can't buy a station wagon anymore and the maybe three there are to choose from are all front wheel drive. I think WV might still one, then there is the Volvo and maybe a mazda, nothing really worth buying.

That's what my dad has used as his hunting/fishing vehicle (which means it's his every-day car ) up in Minnesota. Snow, mud, logging roads, corn fields, slippery boat launches...this thing goes everywhere and he's only been stuck once (that's he's admitted). He's used it to pull other cars out of the places. The back area is big enough to carry an uncut sheet of plywood.

It's also does an amazing job of protecting its passengers. Dad, mom, DW, DD1, and I were in it when we were re-ended at 50 mph by a Ford 250 (we were stopped to make a left turn). It knocked us 15 feet and into a ditch. The Subaru was totalled but the only injuries to us were some scratches on DD1's face. She was in a rear-facing car seat and got showered by broken glass.

Dad went out and immediately bought another Outback (well, after the insurance money came, anyway).

However, if you are really tall test drive it for a while to make sure it fits. I find them a bit cramped, but then I'm 6'5" and 220lbs.

-Blast

Mu cousin's wife had one. In the Mountains of WV, PA, MD, etc they can barely make it up the hills, way underpowered. Then their AWD combined with the mountains made the gas milage drop. Their Dodge durango gets better mileage because it can pull the hills in OD instead of dropping down to 2nd.
Then they have a timing belt instead of a chain.

Ah, not aware of that problem. Not many serious hills in Minnesota or places it's been driven in Texas. Compared to the tiny 4-banger I have in my RAV4 his Outback seemed okay.

Thanks for the info!

-Blast

It gets even worse with the hybrid Camry. They are not rated for towing AT ALL. No, nada, nothing, no way, no how. In return for that, you have to really work at it to get them under 35mpg from a good size car. Bumper to bumper traffic at creep speed with the windows down & AC off burns no gas until you need to recharge the battery. (AC is all electric & off reduces battery drain)

i have a 77 jepp cj since 1982only minor prob with it ie starter x3 altx2 time belt x1 rebuiltmotor & tranny in88 good jeep

I beg to differ. My girlfriend can get from the north end of Missouri just about to her parent's house halfway into Wisconsin, on one tank. That's around 480 miles, according to Mapquest. My explorer gets, probably, 350 miles. So, at least with our 2 cars, hers gets by far better mileage. And, even if it is a smaller tank, that just makes it easier/faster to top off if a gas station is found. No killing 10 minutes topping off a gas guzzler and letting more traffic pass through.

As for city driving, she refills probably once a month around here; I'm lucky if I go 2 weeks (my car drops to just over 200 miles on a tank).

If I was to evac and stay on roads, her car would be the way to go. I don't worry much about inclement weather on pavement, since apparently 4wd doesnt' work that well on ice. Besides, she's a Wisconsin girl, and I'm a California boy: I can't drive that great on anything but dry pavement anyway!