Column: Why this?

Author: Michael W. Rush

Well we just got the new BMW X5M and X6M pictures, and some of us were wondering “Why this?”. The car that has that much power, but probably has the aerodynamics of a smaller house, with driving characteristics of a drunk turtle, shouldn’t sell anywhere? No. It will sell, everywhere. And I mean EVERYWHERE. The thinking of BMW guys is simple, you have a big SUV, wanna sell it to power hungry middle aged wealthy man? Get an M// badge on it!

As one guy I know once said: “If BMW put their badge on a pile of poo, it would sell as the worlds most beautiful pile of poo, with power crazed poo lovers emerging everywhere you can see”. That’s the basics of economy, badging and marketing, completed with some stereotypes people have in these parts of the world, conclude as a pie chart in some BMW executive’s head with big dollar signs coming out of his eyes. Don’t get me wrong it’s still a great car, and I would love to drive it, but the purpose of this model isn’t that clear to me.

Nevermind the economical structure, the middle aged men who will buy it, the wealthy Russian oligarhs who will own 20 of them, nevermind the crazy sheik in Saudi Arabia who will own 20 of them, all in white, nevermind the 18 year old teenagers who’s dad bought him the X6M for his birthday, nevermind them. They are just the targeted consumer circle that will buy this kind of car. But the question is “Why this?” in form of the cars usability.

Let’s put it this way, you have a 2 ton (or more, not sure at the moment) monster, with 555HP, which can pull out trees in first gear how much torque it has, and you got 20″ wheels on it, and the tires who’s width can be compared to elephant feet, and you do what with it? Drive to your local pub, on your local, well paved, no hole roads? And that’s it? You cannot go offroad with that tires, no way. You’ll end up in the first ditch with your 335/45/20 road tires rolling infinitely with no traction present. You cannot get on the racing track and expect to do anything worth doing on the corners. Sure, you can get from 0-60 in less than 5 seconds, but what’s the use? Impressing your friends and local farm girls? Some expensive way to show off your skills with a car. For that kind of money you can get an M3 which handles better, accelerates better, get’s from point A to point B faster, and can handle corners in a manner in which the X5M and X6M can only dream off. And it doesn’t need 500 square feet of parking space. And we won’t event get to the part where we talk about operational cost (the gas mileage, services, parts and things like that) here.

The only, and I mean the only purpose of this kind of vehicle is if BMW decided to go on the Dakar Rally next year, so they need a test platform on which to base they’re Dakar cars. The most advanced and tough rally in the world, where people often loose their lives in the process of reaching the finish line should be a good proving ground for this kind of car. Any other usage of this car is unknown to me. Don’t get me wrong, I like fast and powerful cars like the next guy. But I just don’t understand what will you do with that car. As it was proven in the earlier examples with the AMG models of the Mercedes Benz ML SUV it will have a future, and it will sell. But the same question will still puzzle me.

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