Boldly trying to go where no car has gone before

Tag: Front Steering Cylinder

So what does a Sports Activity Coupe look like, exactly? BMW claims its new X6 is the world's first, but that doesn't stand up if you look at SsangYong's replacement for the Musso, the Actyon Sport. Four-wheel drive? Check. Sloping fastback roof? Affirmative. Raised ride height and dumpy appearance? All the crucial elements of SAC-dom are there.

There's also Hyundai's HCD 9 Talus concept, first displayed at the 2006 Detroit auto show. It, too, makes a strong case to be in the SAC vanguard. And what about the angular 1981 American Motors Eagle SX/4, which was billed as "The world's first sports machine that doesn't always need a road"?

OK, so BMW wouldn't be the only company to brag about a first that is nothing of the kind, but what a beauty the X6 is . . . You don't agree? Join the queue. Opinions at the launch ranged from hard to look at, through pug ugly, to a niche too far.

It certainly looks weird. The cabin rises out of the fuselage like the flight deck of an experimental night fighter; it's a coupe from some angles, an off-roader from others. The empty wheelarches and ride height say "show me the mud" while the brutish hatchback and stretched width shout "burn rubber". It looks oddly muscle-bound, as if someone had attached an air-line to a Z4 coupe and, as with several modern BMWs, there's a superficial appeal to it -- a bit like supermarket cheese.

Of course, if energy wasn't so scarce and expensive and its use didn't have planet-changing consequences, we'd all travel in the vehicles of our dreams. Mine would be the J-Type 327 Nubian Royal Starship from the Star Wars films, which might be the source of BMW's inspiration for the X6. But life has a habit of kicking you in the teeth when you start to fill a dream garage, and intimidating 4x4s such as the X6 are in the firing line of every environmental tax and regulation in Europe. No wonder BMW is looking to the US, and just as likely at Russia and the Far East, where eco-sensibilities are subordinate to look-at-my-wad tendencies. The X6 goes on sale at the end of next month and there's already a small order bank from people bored with beating the roads into submission in X3s and X5s.

Is this a logical step for BMW? It's difficult to say. It's not as if the X6 is a cheap "top hat" on an existing platform. Built in a non-union plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, it is part of a $750m (€486m) expansion of the facility to raise production of X5, X3 and Z4 models from 160,000 a year to 240,000. This includes 300 robots, which suggests BMW doesn't think low-wage South Carolina will stay that way forever.

But if the X6 comes ermined in clouds of controversy, then BMW wears its lucky amulet of technical innovation like the bluebird of happiness in a Disney cartoon. Under the skin, the X6 has one of the world's most advanced four-wheel drive systems, using a multi-plate clutch and individual planetary gear sets in the rear axle to apportion power and torque to the most appropriate wheel, both under power and when decelerating. It also powers the outside rear wheel to reduce understeer, and with the dynamic performance control it will cut the power and drive the outside wheels in the bend when there is a danger of the vehicle sliding. With no low-ratio transfer case, the technology is intended to keep on-road drivers out of trouble, but the X6 also has hill-descent control, traction control and brake apportioning systems that will at least allow owners to extricate themselves from some tight spots. All the test cars came with BMW's optional active steering system, optional adaptive damper and driving control and 20-inch wheels.

Four engines will be offered at launch: two 3.0-litre, six-cylinder diesels with single or twin turbocharging, a 3.0-litre, six-cylinder, twin-turbocharged petrol and a twin-turbo, 4.4-litre V8 petrol, which by itself has an urban thirst big enough to raise the sea level by a couple of inches. All get a six-speed automatic transmission with a sports mode that quickens changes and takes the engine revs higher, and gearchange buttons behind the steering wheel.

The bodywork dwarfs even six-footers, but inside the X6 is a miracle of reverse packaging. Strictly a four-seater, the rear seats are pushed close together to prevent occupants hitting their heads on the sloping roof. One six-footer behind another will have plenty of legroom but negligible headroom. The boot is large, but too high for most dogs to get into.

In the front this is a seriously luxurious machine, although with eight surface changes on the door panels alone you can't help feeling that BMW is showing off. The X6 is also quite hard to see out of, especially to the rear due to the sloping roofline, and it's difficult to judge where the extremities are.

Only the most powerful diesel and petrol engines were available to drive, and we can dispense with the V8 petrol in a couple of lines. We're glad that such engines exist, but in almost every aspect of ourdriving this is way too powerful, thirsty and expensive.

We have driven the twin-turbo, 3.0-litre diesel in 3 and 5-series models and it is remarkable. The all-aluminium-alloy six-pot is light, powerful and very flexible, endowing the X6 with a long-legged and (relatively) economical cruising ability, but it's by no means silent and in this 2.2-ton car its gruff, industrial growl underlies even part-throttle progress. The gearbox suits it well, although there are inexplicably large gaps between some ratios, which require every bit of the engine's flexibility to smooth over.

Yet it's very competent, the grip levels are high and the tyres give up their hold progressively and predictably. All in all the X6 is a hard vehicle to like, and to look at, but it's equally difficult to hate something so accomplished at a task no one has yet identified. The X6 attracts admiration like a high-tech, 21st century version of Dr Johnson's dog walking on its hind legs; it is done well, but you are astonished to find it done at all.