Cars were built to serve one purpose – transportation. Over the years, they have been turned, moulded, and engineered – making them works of art on four wheels. They are now a fashion statement, a status symbol, a meeting room, a go-anywhere tool, or even a make-out lounge (people keep getting innovative).

Though the automobile still serves one primary purpose, there are a lot of these other elements that add complexity. But, at the end of the day, it’s all about keeping it simple. And that’s what the BMW Xperience was about as well. The company wanted to showcase not only the complexity of their xDrive, intelligent all-wheel drive system – but also the ease of use of the technology from behind the wheel.

With a test course charted out for us, we were given the task of piloting the entire BMW X range of vehicles, which included the X3, X5, and X6 – all currently being sold in India. And all with off-roading capabilities thanks to the intelligent all-wheel drive system – xDrive. The 10 obstacles on the course were meant to test this very system, as well as provide an understanding of how this system monitors and computes ever-changing driving conditions.

While we tackled the obstacles on the course, each hurdle showed us a different side of how the xDrive comes into play as the terrain and conditions change. The all-wheel drive system reacts in a fraction of a second, and this gives the vehicle a huge advantage – because even on surfaces like sand or loose ground, there’s no loss of grip as the power is distributed to the tyres with the most traction. So, even with two tyres in the air, there’s no wheelspin as the power is distributed to the two wheels on the ground – which meant we were on our way to the next obstacle in a matter of seconds.

What’s intelligent about it is that all this is done in a split-second, thus also improving the driving dynamics on the road. Granted, the entire BMW X-range has enough power and torque to drive you anywhere, but it’s when you find yourself in a tough spot that the xDrive leaps into action and pulls you out completely effortlessly.

So, what the BMW Xperience taught me was that you buy a vehicle from BMW’s X range for its looks and power of course, but also because somewhere deep in BMW HQ there’s a group of computer geeks writing algorithms to allow BMW’s xDrive system to transport you across virtually any terrain.