Welcome to Autoxchange - Feature: BMW's Sports Activity Coupe!


BMW's Sports Activity Coupe!	Text: The Consultant

Everybody, by now, will be familiar with the 'new' Honda CR-V. Remember what Honda said while launching it – that it’s a hybrid design. Above the beltline it's a car and below that it's an off-roader. The proliferation of sports utility vehicles and soft-roaders on city streets is the thinking behind the design, while giving the customer both qualities (SUV and car) in one vehicle.

It appears that BMW is also toeing that line – just have a look at the new X6. Study it from a distance and note the stance, look at the roofline and take in that overall 'lowered' look. It’s

different from anything BMW has done in the recent past, and the Bavarian manufacturer has coined a new acronym to go along with it – SAC, which simply stands for ‘Sports Activity Coupe.’ Forgive yourself for thinking that that’s how you’d normally define a sports car if you were to give it some serious thought!

	If you've always wished for a sports car with the driving position of an SUV, then the X6 is for you		According to the Germans, and self evident from the way it looks frankly, is that they’ve taken the features and some design cues from their larger coupes and married them to the X range of off-roaders. The result is a very sporting and dynamic looking BMW X model. Giving the front end large air intakes, together with the stretched sideline and the low greenhouse area, has enhanced the overall styling. In the west, the X6 comes with a range of power units: a twin-turbocharger straight-six petrol engine that develops 306bhp, a straight-six diesel unit that develops 286bhp with help from variable twin turbos, and a less powerful (235bhp) straight-six diesel with a turbocharger.

	Top of the range, however, is a new V8 petrol engine with twin turbos, developing a whopping 407bhp – thanks in part to direct petrol injection, which BMW calls 'High Precision Injection'. The turbo-charger and catalytic converters sit between the cylinder banks within the V-section, and this serves two purposes – reduces pressure losses on both intake and exhaust sides, as well as making the engine more compact. Torque from this unit is a massive 440 lb/ft, spread over a wide engine rpm range. Utilising that torque effectively is the job of the six-speed automatic transmission. The optimised gearshift action is fast and the driver gets paddles on the steering wheel a la F1 as standard. Ordinarily, you may not really be interested in the performance figures of an SUV-type of vehicle but it's interesting to note that this variant does the 0-100kp/h sprint in a sports car rivaling 5.4 seconds. Keeping the occupants safe and helping to harness all that performance is BMW's intelligent xDrive (all-wheel drive) technology together with Dynamic Performance Control. The variable


	distribution of power makes for a more stable and performance oriented vehicle on the road. Unlike most stability control systems, this one doesn’t simply apply the brakes to those wheels that loose traction but actually supplies torque to outer rear wheel to help the car turn into a corner – thereby keeping the vehicle on its intended course without loosing power. Manufactured in South Carolina, USA, for the world market, the production line is shared with the X5 and Z4. BMW expects 50% of their sales to come from the US market. It’ll be interesting to see how people react to such a radical new design once the X6 hits US showrooms in the very near future.