That's an interesting tidbit. I always thought that they did. I thought the automotive term "GT" meant "Grand Tour" and was European in inspiration.
That's what I get for culling most of my European auto culture information from Top Gear.
Even besides the German brands (VW, Mercedes, BMW), there are a huge number of European car manufacturers (Skoda, Peugeot, citroen) > showing ability and demand for cars in Europe. Also, the small size and mostly flat nature of Europe, cultural diversity, and longer vacation time all contribute to Europeans traveling more than Americans. Not to mention excellent roads, family/student hostels for less expensive trips (pre-Airbnb era) and obviously Visa free travel. So yes Europeans might not have the same idea of long distance road trips we have in the US but that is not to say they don't take the same trips or more than in the US
So how do you explain the countless German and Dutch cars driving around forests of Norway and Sweden every summer?
Even then, there are no American size cars. Most sold cars are European or Japanese station wagons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limousine#/media/File:98-02_Li...
So I assume you were using the "sedan" interpretation.
If we need to move mulch or the like, we rent/buy trailers.
This is a reflection of the vehicle platforms they're built on. You take a Civic or a Dart slap on AWD, a lift kit and extra 500-1000lb of body/interior and call it a CRV or a Cherokee and there's not much spare capacity left to haul cargo or tow trailers.
There are a lot of forces at play here, among others tax rates (which cause the F150 to get bigger and European cars to get lighter), fuel prices, culture (in Europe a big truck won't impress anyone, you get other types of cars for that), average and maximum distance traveled (in Europe nobody fantasizes about roadtrips), road conditions (high population density makes offroad driving less important in rural Europe than in rural America), etc