Let’s get this straight from the outset: this is not my kind of car. The X4 is a machine that’s deeply unsettling to my retinas and one whose actual purpose will always escape me. I reckon that a bunch of designers were sat in BMW’s factory cafe one day and mulled over the potential to plug the most minuscule of gaps in the company’s product range. They perhaps realised that what the world was most desperate for was an X6 that looked like it had been shrunk in the wash – you know, one that might appeal to potential 3- or 4-Series owners with small-man syndrome.
It’s quite possibly the most pointless car that I have driven so far this year. I fully understand the appeal of SUVs – they’re usually luxurious, spacious and practical. So why bother to design a car that takes up the same space as an SUV yet offers much less in the way of usable room? Why make a coupé SUV at all? It just doesn’t make sense.
And yet it would appear, in this region at least, that my sensibilities are not shared by the masses. So an X4 must make perfect sense to BMW’s bean counters, because, here, the X6 is ubiquitous – more than 250,000 of them have so far found buyers – and it feels like most of them are in the UAE. The X6 was put into a boil wash and the X4 emerged from the machine.
Accepting, then, that this is never going to appeal to me on an emotional or practical level, is the X4 a bad car or a good one that looks unfortunate? The answer to that conundrum lies in those three little letters: B, M and W. Because the Bavarian Motor Works doesn’t make bad cars – far from it. BMW makes some of the very finest cars on sale anywhere in the world, so there’s bound to be at least some talent lurking within the X4’s structure.
While it might look silly from the outside, with wheels that seem entirely lost in the sea of sheet metal and glass that makes up its body, the interior is standard BMW fare – and there’s nothing at all wrong with that. Premium, luxury materials cover practically every surface and there’s a feeling of heft to the switchgear that other pretenders couldn’t dream of replicating.
A tug of the meaty steering wheel while on the move tells you all that you need to know about this or any other BMW – beautifully weighted, accurate and with a feeling that this is an extremely well-oiled machine. It’s an easy car to place, either on the open road or when traversing city traffic, and it engenders a sense of well-being, helped by the unobtrusive and just-as-slick transmission.
My test car is blessed with a turbocharged, 3.0L, straight-six engine, and it’s good enough to fire this ungainly projectile to 100kph from a standstill in just 5.5 seconds, which is rapid in anyone’s book. Unfortunately, however, you really have to rag it to get anything approaching a spirited drive, with the power delivery only coming to life beyond 3,500rpm. It also lacks some of the aural pleasures afforded by other big sixes offered by the brand – I had to lower the window while in an underground car park to tell if it was, indeed, a six-cylinder motor or whether someone had stuck the wrong badge on its flanks.
It can handle corners with aplomb, though, evidenced by my eagerness to press on through them to see if the rather tall X4 becomes unsettled in any way. It doesn’t. It apportions the correct amount of torque to the appropriate wheels and gets the job done. Once I’ve worked out that putting it into Sport mode gives the engine a bit of a kick, I actually begin to enjoy being behind its wheel. Until, that is, I catch sight of my reflection in a shop window.
You see, that sloping rear does more than make the X4 look lumpy. It also restricts rear accommodation, thanks to the rake of the hatch, requiring lower, thinner seats that still can’t compensate for the space intrusion. It’s no doubt perfectly fine for children, but adults would soon begin to complain on longer journeys – and you might find yourself wishing you’d gone for either an X5 or even a bog-standard 3-Series. The boot, however, is more than generous, so, if they complain too loudly, you could always offer to “relocate” them.
The biggest thorn in the side of the X4 and other “sports activity vehicles” of its ilk is that there’s a new kid in town – one with a Porsche badge on its bonnet. The Macan S is cheaper, (to these eyes, anyway) far better-looking and it’s a fun steer, with gravitas aplenty. But this BMW, despite its shortcomings, is still a good car with much to recommend it. It’s just a pity, though, that when the company is capable of such incredible new machinery in the shape of the i8, that it still feels the need to keep plugging away at gaps that nobody knew existed.
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