Fast Facts

Verdict:
Coupe meets SUV, with mixed results

Powerful engine, amazing agility for a car of this size

It’s as big as a minibus yet seats only four, almost too wide to park in some spaces, poor rearward visibility

BMW tries a new crossover approach by blending an SUV with a coupe. Does it work?

By Lionel Kong

EVER WONDER WHAT would happen if some mad scientist on a remote island somewhere were to try and create an animal with the size and power of an African elephant with the speed and agility of a cheetah?

Well BMW’s latest offering is very much the automotive equivalent of such a pairing. The X6 is the German automotive firm’s idea of what should happen when you blend an SUV with a coupe. The logic isn’t all that difficult to work out from a marketing perspective really. Since people love driving around town in hulking, towering SUVs as well as the glamour of being seen in a sports coupe, Why not just combine the two and get the perfect luxury automotive product?

The final product is something to behold, though whether or not it looks pretty and works well is entirely in the eyes of the beholder.

For starters, the X6 is as tall as some of the biggest seven-seater MPVs out there, but it seats only four. In keeping with the sporty coupe theme, the rear seats are two individual buckets with a wide console in between and the steep, sloping fastback rear hatch rules out any possibility of adding a third row of seats.

Even though it’s called the X6 for short, the car’s full name is the X6 xDrive35i, nevermind that the engine isn’t even a 3.5-litre unit.

It’s actually a 3.0-litre, twin turbo in-line six cylinder that develops 306bhp and 400Nm of torque. A 4.4-litre, V8 twin turbo variant is expected to arrive later and that’s called the X6 xDrive50i.