#x6

BMW has pulled the sheets off the new M variants for its line of X5 and X6 SUVs, addressing a horsepower issue that didn’t actually exist. With base models offering over 300 hp and top-trimmed units reaching 523 hp, it’s hard to imagine there being a write-in campaign pleading with the automaker for higher performance M models. But we aren’t going to complain.

The new versions outclass the old X5/X6 M’s 567 horsepower thanks to a 600-hp, TwinPower V8 on loan from the updated BMW M5. Competition models add even more might, taking the 4.4-liter S63 motor up to a lovely 625 horsepower. BMW has also fitted the units with an M-specific adaptive suspension it claims will further improve handling — not that the ludicrously heavy utilities weren’t already impressively nimble for their size.

2015 BMW X6 M

4.4-liter, twin turbocharged V-8 with direct injection and variable valve control (567 horsepower @ 6,000 rpm; 553 pounds-feet of torque @ 2,000-5,500 rpm)8-speed M Sport automatic

14 city/19 highway/16 combined (EPA Rating, MPG)

16.8 mpg combined, 60 percent highway, 40 percent asshat (Observed, MPG)

Tested Options: Driver Assistance Plus – $1,900; Executive Package – $4,500; Enhanced Bluetooth and smartphone – $500.

Base Price:
$103,050 w/ $950 destination charge
As Tested Price:
$109,950 w/ $950 destination charge

For most people who find themselves burdened with the choice between fast and big: Salud, you’ve made it somewhere. For the small number of people who scoff at those physical encumbrances: pay your taxes, please. You’re using the road more than the rest of us.

Imagine, if you can, a Venn diagram of two relatively equal circles representing a traditional buyer’s decision between two cars that, everything else being equal, represent the physical problem of mass and its direct effect on velocity. Two unrelated sets of realities — speed and size — very rarely converge in the physical world, unless those sets are colored Castrol red, Bavarian blue and of course, purple, I guess.

I’m making this point because the BMW X6 M seems, well, kind of pointless. On paper, the big SUV doesn’t scream that it wants to be taken off road (and dent those 21-inch wheels?!) nor does it seem like it wants to go that fast. After all, 5,185 pounds is large enough to have its own weather system.

Now capable of doing burnouts, the second-gen BMW X6 arrived at the 2014 Paris Auto Show with RWD for the first time.

With Mercedes cranking out AWD versions of their AMG products and Audi finally bringing their AWD “RS” products to America, it was only a matter of time before BMW have in and added some front-wheel motivation to their M5. Just kidding. BMW maintains that the M5 will forever retain RWD. This means the M5 will focus on dynamics and not acceleration. BMW’s answer to this deficiency since 2010 comes in the form of the X5M and X6M cousins.

When BMW launched its X6 a few years ago, it was widely considered an abomination and a deviation from the true BMW way. Justin Berkowitz, while still working for TTAC, called it the BMW Xcreable X6 and claimed it was conceived while “a BMW X5 went out drinking with a Scion tC. They had way too much Jose Cuervo and yada yada yada…”

As it happened so often, the opinions of the experts were ignored by the market, and the X6 turned into a runaway success. Audi supposedly can’t stand on the sidelines. Now, Daimler is rumored to line up an X6 fighter of its own.

You can already buy a BMW 3-Series in sedan, coupe, station wagon and X3 “cute-ute” bodystyles, and for some automakers that might be enough. For niche-crazed BMW though, it’s just the beginning. A 3-Series GT is planned in the mold of the 5-Series GT, as a midway-point between the coupe, sedan and station wagon versions. You know, in case you can’t decide which you want. “This has never existed!” screamed Autobild… back in 2008. Of course, now it does exist in the form of the 5-series GT, which could actually end up replacing the 5-series wagon in the US market. And as the march of the niche vehicles rolls onward, there’s one more segment that the 3-series architecture still hasn’t capitalized on: the jacked-up midway point between coupe and SUV. That’s right babies, the X4.