Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Chelsea tractor n.

also Fulham tractor, Toorak tractor, Mosman tractor, Dalkeith tractor, ...rickshaw
[the popularity of four-wheel-drive SUVs among the rich inhabitants of Chelsea, London SW3, Fulham, London SW10; similarly applied in Aus. to Toorak, Melbourne, etc]

a sports utility vehicle; such vehicles are ridiculed for rarely if ever being used in the rural environments for which they are ostensibly intended.

Show quotations
BookDaily.com 15 Nov. 🌐 Shannon held her stare for a moment. [...] ‘Is that your “Chelsea Tractor” four-by-four out there?’.
[Aus]Bulletin (Sydney) 6331-6339 8: The Range Rover, which remains the benchmark against which all 4WD vehicles are compared [...] For more than 30 years, the original ‘Toorak Tractor’ .
BBC Radio 4 news item 25 May ‘Fulham tractor’.
www.travelpod.com 14 July 🌐 A collection of [...] buildings varying in size from those no larger than a a ‘Fulham Tractor’ (Range Rover) to those of several thousand square fee.
C. Odone Dilemmas of H. Carew n.p.: Charlotte drives half an hour in her Chelsea tractor to get to the Nature and Nurture Centre [...] and buys faded, dimpled, wrinkly little fruit and veg at three times the price of their non-organic equivalents.
[Aus]B. Moore Speaking Our Lang. 171: In Melbourne the term is Toorak tractor, in Sydney Mosman tractor, and in Perth a Dalkeith tractor or Dalkeith rickshaw.
[Aus]L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] A BMW, Toorak tractor and rubbish skip were in my way.
Rough Guide to Norfolk & Suffolk [ebook] Parts of the north Norfolk coast are firm Chelsea tractor territory, and Southwold and Aldeburgh have always been genteel resorts .
[Aus]Betoota-isms 202: Byron Bulldozer [...] 3. A poorly driven suburban utility vehicle, often spotted double-parked in an inner-city loading zone See also: The Paddington Pickup; The Toorak Tractor.