Spied: 2009 BMW X6 - Car News
While BMWs Concept CS keeps people talking after the Shanghai auto show, work is well under way in Munich on another vehicle taking a slightly different approach to the four-door coupe concept: BMWs X6.
BMWs four-door coupe conceptor is it a five-door hatch?straddles the space between the Mercedes-Benz CLS and R-class.
The X6 takes the swoopy greenhouse-style-über-alles idea to the sport-utility front. Just as the CLS is basically a rebodied E-class sedan, the X6 will put a faster, sexier roofline on the latest-generation X5 that bowed last fall at the Paris auto show and is now on sale in Europe. The resultant X6 is one of those neither beast nor fowl niche vehicles: an off-road four-door designed to look like a coupe with its low roofline.
2009 BMW X6
2009 BMW X6 Illustration by Radovan Varicak
Take a close look at the X6 mule seen here lapping the Nürburgring. Although the windshield is more upright and the wheels are of course smaller than those in the radical illustration (at right) we showed you a year ago, these photos suggest that the production model will keep the sharply rising beltline, as predicted. And the camouflage rear hatch that starts above the B-pillar is a good way to hide a rakish roofline, the sort that compromises rear headroom in the CLS and Concept CS. We do not, however, expect that rear spoiler to make it off the Ring and onto production vehicles. Maybe as a dealer-installed accessory?
The X6 will likely be offered with the choice of a diesel or gasoline six-cylinder engine (including the twin-turbo inline-six in the new 3-series coupe). And judging by the exhaust outlets and fat rear tires in the spy shots, a gasoline V-8 also appears to be in the lineup.
BMW will build the X6 in Spartanburg, South Carolina, beginning next year, which means upping capacity at the German automakers only U.S. plant yet again. The X5 and Z4 sports car already start life in Spartanburg. BMW expects to build about 50,000 X6s a year.
And BMW has hinted that the next-generation X3 could make the oceanic shift from Graz, Austria, to the southern state in the future, which would be much to Magna Steyrs chagrin, as the supplier is the contract builder of the X3 in Graz. But then, Magna Steyr could have its hands full if it ends up buying a chunk of Chrysler, so an X3 migration might not prove the end of the world. Maybe Dodge Avengers could fill that empty production halle in Austria.
Based on the title I was also wondering why BMW would build a 2-door SUV based on the X5, but apparently this is some other wierd thing. How is an SUV coupe thingy going to work? Will it be something like this:
