2005 BMW 645 Preview

BMW 6-Series Coupe Vs. BMW X3

BMW's two newest vehicles for 2004. You won't read about them anywhere else.

In the southern Spanish region of Andalusia, few drives can be as challenging as "the Ronda Road" -- a screamer of a road winding in a series of nasty switchbacks up to the mountain town of Ronda, and then a nail-biting one-lane pass down the other side.

Driving on the Costa del Sol is less about the act of going from A to B then getting there as quickly as possible. The roads, many of which are excellent, are full of small European cars whose drivers have about as much patience with road etiquette and personal safety as Donald Rumsfeld has for the Pentagon press corps.

The Ronda Road, with its sheer drops and hairpin turns, is exactly what one would want to attack in a car as famously balanced as a BMW. A BMW coupe, that is. That BMW's new X3 SUV was able to negotiate this road as crisply as it did -- cornering nimbly and powering through the treacherous climb and the equally dangerous descent -- surprised not only us but the Spaniards we were constantly overtaking.

More important, the X3, by being nearly as fun to drive, or perhaps as fun, as the company's new 6-Series coupe flagship, represents a new era in which BMW has more than one sport utility vehicle that is as exciting as a passenger car.

The X3, which is based on the 3-Series sedan (as the larger X5 sport utility is on based on the 5-Series), delivers the sort of super-stiff, super-sporty ride that attracts youth and may repel moms and dads. Its smaller size makes it more agile and sporty than the already sporty X5 (which did more than 100,000 in sales last year), and a preponderance of industry analysts say that kids love SUVs.

But parents need not fear, what with the X3's impressive commitment to safety. Up to eight airbags are available, including four standard side-curtain bags.

Premium SUVs like the X3 are a safe bet for companies looking to make money. Dr. Helmut Panke , chairman of BMW, said through an interpreter that "in the next ten years, growth in the premium segments, percentage-wise, will be twice that in the mass segments" -- and premium SUV's will have double that growth, he added.

The X3 will be built by Magna Steyr, an Austrian carmaker. Panke says that BMW could bring the vehicle to market more quickly by farming out its production.

But if the X3 requires a leap outside the company, the new 6-Series taps BMW's roots. When the original 6-Series coupe was sold from 1977 to 1989, it was "the most successful coupe in the history of BMW, accounting for about 86,000 units," according to Dr. Burkhard Göschel , BMW's board member in charge of development and purchasing, speaking through an interpreter.

Now, as BMW's resurrected coupe flagship, it will take its position alongside the 7-Series sedan flagship for a similar price. It will compete against vehicles like DaimlerChrysler's Mercedes-Benz CL; Ford Motor's Jaguar XK8; and Maserati's $80,000-plus Coupe.

The 6-Series, like the 7, plays by BMW's new rules, with a clean, angular design similar to the company's other revamped passenger cars. It also features the element that has most distinguished recent BMWs, and drawn some controversy along with the styling: iDrive, the byzantine unit that integrates more than 750 navigation, communications, radio and climate features. It is controlled by a large knob below the gearshift and displayed on a screen in the center of the dashboard.

Despite an overwhelmingly negative response from the automotive media to the iDrive, BMW plans to put the unit on all of its vehicles (it is not on the X3 yet). Panke says, "iDrive will be with us forever." He adds that the public was not adequately prepared for the iDrive's debut in 2001, and that BMW's dealers will facilitate its acceptance if they let customers figure it out for themselves and do not spend hours explaining it to them.

The real question is whether consumers are on board with the new-look 7-series, and so far the answer seems to be "not entirely." BMW's sales are consistently among the strongest in the automotive business. For the first nine months of 2003, BMW, including MINI, states that it sold 204,183 vehicles, compared with 187,157 in the same period of 2002, an increase of 9%. But 7-series sales are down: Year-to-date 7-series sales are 14,410, dropping from 16,296 at this time last year.

In several recent interviews, Panke has declared his unalloyed loyalty to iDrive and chief designer Chris Bangle, as both have been criticized. He is putting his money where his mouth is, though, with the new 6-Series and X3 -- two vehicles that buck tradition and further cement the new image of BMW.

The 6-series is slated to hit showrooms March 20. The X3 will be on display at dealerships and available for test drives in November, but it will not actually go on sale until January 2004. To learn more about these two new Bimmers -- because no one else has written about them yet.