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BMW’S CALVIN LUK TALKS EXCLUSIVELY TO LIZ DOBSON ABOUT HOW HE CREATED THE ALL- NEW X3

“The overall impression of this X3 is a much grander feeling than the previous model. It's much more direct and impactful, especially the charge forward. It's got that lifted kidney sticking out of the bonnet, threedimensionally sculpted, protruding outward. It's got this charge . . . extremely confident, eyes clearly focused.

As with many X- range cars, we're also trying to bring in the power into the air intake. It's also an efficiency thing, getting in more air, because these new engines, they need a lot of air to run at maximum efficiency. Then, when you don't need it, we close off the air intake.

Then, when you go to the side, you sort of see the new proportion, with that 50mm wider wheel base. Once again, it's about power as the first read and then second read is that sophistication coming through. And we have the power coming through from the wheels and you know it's an X car.

It's about the four wheels conquering the road or, rather, the off- road.

We've reduced the number of lines so you can focus more on the surfaces. In the previous generation, we had what we called in design “the fender line”; a crease above the front wheel and a crease going through the body side, and then another crease above the rear wheel.

There's a large bold surface on the front wheel, just above it on the front fender, and then similarly on the rear wheel. So you have these big, bulging wheel arches and then between you have these sculptural surfaces and light and shadow.

Light meaning the surfaces facing up, and shadow the surfaces facing downward. That starts to sculpt the body between the muscular wheels and gives it the athleticism and a feeling of sophistication, almost like the drape of fabric.

Then, if I just go back to the wheel arches, that's a unique shape for BMWand for X cars. It's derived from a rectangular wheel arch, which we know from cars like X1 or previous generation X5.

I've given it a forward leaning chamber so it's got a stable feeling coming from this rectangular shape and then tilted forward so it's directional.

We've simplified the window graphic, the daylight opening and the Hofmeister kink [ rear side window design], which is a typical BMWfeature.

We've referenced a bit of the first- gen X3 . . . this also highlights the extension in the cabin.

We've stretched that window glass and that's going to give it sleekness. When we stretched the