M is for meh
Another souped-up hatch/SUV from BMW. Whoop
If you land a works drive with Team Vulgarian, this is your car. It must be one of the most reviled vehicles on the road. Still, for every hundred people who loathe it, there will be one who loves it, and they might be someone you badly want to impress. If so, you’ll want this car no matter what I say.
And heck, the engine is pretty appealing. A heavily revised 4.4 V8 with all BMW M’s fancy fuelling and turbocharging tech, its 575bhp and stump-yanking torque, teamed with unshakable traction, will send you squalling forward whatever the situation. Sure, if you’re of an M mentality, you might like a noise that’s more charismatic, but there’s no doubting the performance.
Hilariously, BMW sent me of on a racetrack in the X6M. It has loads of tech to make it work in that improbable environment: active anti-roll that jacks up the outside of the car to keep it level in bends, torque-vectoring difs, adaptive dampers, 10 radiators, huge Brembos and fancy dual-compound Michelins.
It still feels like its 2.3 tonnes, mind. Meaning it doesn’t feel of anything much, because all that mass and tech isolates you from the action. It also feels its weight if you turn in too fast, melting into understeer. And the brakes are obviously working terribly hard. But feed it into a corner smoothly, and it’ll go around with epic resolve and will even adjust its attitude to the throttle. Powerslides out of slow bends are an option.
More impressive is that this pointless track prep hasn’t entirely spoiled the X6M on the road. There’s a lot of tyre noise and the ride is stifsh, but by no means intolerable in the chassis’ softest settings. The immense thrust is delivered with impeccable subtlety – at least unless you demand otherwise and foor it. In other ways, this is a fully equipped and hedonistic luxo-SUV. If it’s too cramped in the back, get the mechanically identical X5M.
But, either way, the dichotomy is painful: if you wanted a sports car, you wouldn’t start with a 2.3-tonne SUV. I can only think of one reason to own it: to tow your Caterham to track days. Then if you prang the Caterham on the frst corner, well you can walk back to the paddock, unhitch the trailer and carry on lapping in the BMW.