Winding Road Drives BMW’s X6
Written By: William Jeanes
BMW’s new X6, according to company spokesflacks, is a Sports Activity Coupe. Never mind that counting the doors produces the number four. Five if you count the easy-opening hatchback.
Details are sketchy where the engines are concerned, but there will be two, the larger of which will be a V-8 with more horsepower than the unit in the X5, which is not a coupe.The body, however, is there to see now. It has a more steeply raked windshield, and the door tops are closer together, giving it a lean aspect when viewed from the front.
Driving the X6 is an enlightening experience. BMW’s ultimate driving engineers have taken X-drive to new levels of handling stability. The system is unique in that the wheels’ individual responses to road surface and to dynamic forces are independent from torque input. Which is to say that the magic box controlling yaw, braking, traction, and fore-to-aft torque split, makes decisions that have nothing to do with input from your right foot.
The X6 seats four, which tells you that the third-row seat is now a trunk. And a big one. Getting in and out of the rear seat is not easy for a large person due to the lower roof line and lower seating position.There are two tire setups. One, presumably for the V-8, has 275/40R20s up front and giant 315/30R20s in back. The other set-up had 255/50R19 Michelins all around.As noted, the X6 will help you avoid mistakes. We drove it at speed, through slalom and handling courses, and on greasy wet blacktop without losing control once. Yet the stability system is unintrusive, and the overall driving experience is just what we’ve long since come to expect from BMW.
The X6 will be introduced at the NAIAS in January and will go on sale about mid-2008. The sporty, non-Soccer Mom X6 will be priced above the X5, so we’ll predict a price range from $52,000 to $62,000. That gets you what can rightly be called leading edge tech in a distinctive BMW package.
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BMW自創的新級距的Sports Activity Coupe-X6, 雖以"COUPE" 號招，實際上仍是一款五門的掀背休旅車款。 測試圖片可以大略看出它所配置的引擎格式應該會有一顆比X5更大的V8可供X6使喚，A柱比起一般SUV來地傾斜，車窗頂部線條整理地很緊湊，從車頭望去營造一股纖細流暢的感覺。
試駕過新X6發現它的操控感又提升至另一個境界。BMW開發了一套系統讓每只輪胎可針對路況回饋來同步控制打滑、煞車及前後輪的扭力分配，讓右腳變得更清鬆。X6並無配置第三排座椅，限於低斜的車窗線條及較低的後車坐椅，體型大的人進出後座車廂會有點吃力。關於車胎的配置我們預期V8引擎:前275/40R20s ，後315/30R20s ，直六引擎前後皆為255/50R19。
X6的動態穩定性不論是行經快速彎道或是高速巡航，或在溼滑柏油路上表現都讓人信心滿滿，動態穩定系統對操控的介入十分輕微，整體表現和我們對BMW的期待相符。X6，這台充滿動感，不會被當成接送小孩上下課的媽媽車，預計於2008年(一月)底特律車展正式亮相，2008年中上市，售價應比X5略高，大約在52000~62000美金之間，它將讓各位體會什麼叫作BMW的創新科技。
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