Autobild's take on the BMW X6
The four-door coupe market is beginning to get crowded and the Mercedes-Benz CLS won't be alone for long. Both the Porsche Panamera and the Aston Martin Rapide will be bringing their coupe-like profiles to the party in the next few years. BMW's date to the dance will be the X6, a four-door coupe based on the X5 SUV that separates itself with four-wheel drive and a higher seating position than the competition. Power will be provided by either a V8 or a version of BMW's decorated V10 engine. The current cover of German car mag Autobild shows that publication's best guess as to what the X6 will look like when it debuts in 2009.
[Source: autoblog.it]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
hans 6:25PM (6/24/2006)
what the heck is that. why would you build a coupe out of an x5?
and that picture is basically the back of some of the new audi tt photoshoped with a bmw grill and awful chrysler crossfire lights.
what kinda of half ass magazine is that.
Reply
chewy 7:22PM (6/24/2006)
Actually, Autobild is a respectable magazine in Germany. Autobild photoshops are usually relatively close to production models. I have a bigger question, that looks like an updated 6 series, what is the point of having the same car? Higher seating position in a coupe?
Reply
Milos 7:50PM (6/24/2006)
it has 4 dours...
if you look carefuly at the picture, you'll notice (or maybe i'm just imagining) a line runing verticaly before rear wheel arches
Reply
felonious monk 7:59PM (6/24/2006)
" what the heck is that. why would you build a coupe out of an x5?"
Why the hell not? The X5 (more car than truck) has an excellent platform. When you already have a good 4wd platform, it's smart to use it to develop a 4wd sedan rather than waste time and money starting from scratch. It's common practice in the industry.
Reply
epp_b 9:10PM (6/24/2006)
["It has 4 dours...
if you look carefuly at the picture, you'll notice (or maybe i'm just imagining) a line runing verticaly before rear wheel arches"]
Either you're imagining or they're suicide doors a-la RX-8 (notice: no door handle in the back)
Reply
JSFORBES 10:15PM (6/24/2006)
I like it better than the regular 6.
Saw one today at the gas station, I just can't like it.
Reply
chewy 11:18PM (6/24/2006)
I see the rear doors now, It does look better than the 6 series, because it looks more normal. I guess the X6 will be a four door all wheel drive vehicle positioned slightly above the 6 series. Seems very confusing and very unnecessary.
Reply
ik 1:30AM (6/25/2006)
BMW already has a 4 door coupe.
It's called the 5-series sedan.
Reply
JH 1:54AM (6/25/2006)
I'm not sure I understand the recent obsession with "high seating postion" in cars.
Reply
Version 1.0 3:07AM (6/25/2006)
*SIGH* CLS is already a dream to own... Now this? I just hope dreams come true!
Reply
MikeInNC 10:47AM (6/25/2006)
Did anyone see the Speed Test Drive on the BMW ///M cars? Hans Schtuck (sp?) driving an M6 on the Autobahn at 194 mph before he had to back off for traffic and the car was still climbing. Unreal. The US version is limited to 155mph but a quick chip update removes that limit. That's supercar territory. Hans said it was capable of about 200 mph. Unbelievable for a production car available to the average (but well to do) Joe.
Reply
Javier Tadefa 1:10PM (6/25/2006)
You can always search for the specs of the BMW at http://girgle.com
Reply
smoekyphantom 3:45PM (6/25/2006)
Isn't the x5 based off the 5-series? I do think this higher seating position in cars thing is gaining more ground, nevertheless.
Reply
SOhp101 4:36PM (6/25/2006)
Yeah #2, Autobild's concepts are just about as accurate as Autospies's, and we all know how reputable they are in America. /sarcasm
Look at any of Autobild's "future BMW concept" renditions and you can see that they were always horribly off of what the actual car looked like.
BMW often creates models that are similar to MB's, but that is only because both companies happened to be researching them at the same time and MB comes out with it first so BMW hurries on its production. That doesn't mean, however, that BMW has it's own version to every single MB that's out there (read: AMG, G class, CL class).
The most retarded thing about this naming scheme is that people actually believe they would use the letter X to describe a four door coupe when everyone knows the X in bmw is used to describe SUVs or AWD. Why the hell would BMW make a SUV variant on some type of sports car when BMW tries to focus more on handling?
Sounds like what's described above is something that you would see in MB, not BMW.
Reply
cs 9:21PM (6/25/2006)
Isnt 4 door coupe an oxymoron?
Reply
Stoneman 10:24PM (6/25/2006)
I love the M5......but an M6 is totally not my type of car. Is the idrive really that bad?
Stoneman
http://www.stonemanautoreview.com
Reply
Finished.Law.School 12:03AM (6/26/2006)
It all depends on how bad they screw up the trunk line the way they have been screwing them up lately...
Reply
KMFDMR 11:58PM (7/14/2006)
First of all, that picture is of an E92 3 series coupe, not an X6. That picture has nothing to do with an X6; it's irrelevant.
The X6 has not been announced officially, but is a concept car - it's based on the X5, but is larger. It is similar to the CLS in that it will have a coupe shape, but will have 4 doors; read: not suicide doors. However, the CLS is a completely different platform to the X5 (with the M Class as MB's X5 rival).
I do know that the engines suggested have been the 4.8 litre V8 (with 360BHP), N73 6.0 litre 12 cylinder (out of the 760i, with 438BHP) and the M5/M6 V10 (508BHP). This car would be pitched as a competitor to the Porsche Cayenne variants, Audi's Q7 and the like.
For the rest.. We can but speculate. Time will tell.
--
KMFDMR
Reply
rimock 12:25AM (11/30/2006)
This car is an absolutely dream. As a sporting kid-less large-dog owner, I feel doomed to drive an mommy-esque SUV forever. Just tonight I went to look at an X5 and lamented that I wish BMW could build something with 70% of the utilty of an X5, but vastly more sporting appeal.
People comment that this car seams totally unnessecary, but for me anything with more than four seats is totally unnessecary. Most of the people I see driving premium SUV's would likely fit much better into this sort of package than the increasingly mini-van leaning luxury offerings. I find it completely absurd that automakers think that every non-traditional carbuyer is a stay-at-home mom with six kids.
Reply