| BMW is (as car companies tend to be) pretty clear about the customers it is hoping to tempt with its extraordinarily sleek and boldly nose-thumbing new 4x4, the X6. For a start, it doesn"t expect there to be too many of them - just 1,600 in the first year, by comparison with the 5,000 average annual sales of the X5, BMW"s previous ground-breaking SUV, still out there, doing well enough, and currently collecting children from a prep school near you. Sales of 1,600, incidentally, would, BMW insists, comfortably confirm the X6"s status as "a niche car". The distinction between "niche" and "plainly unpopular" is often hard to define mathematically, but it"s an important one, spiritually speaking, within the car industry, and we"re happy to honour it here. Anyway, within that niche demographic, BMW further identifies a particular customer likely to be tickled by the X6 - the person who used to own an X5, or something similar, and is still keen to have a car along the same lines, but this time, being that little bit older, will be looking for a vehicle that, as BMW puts it, "doesn"t scream "family" ". And fair play to this imaginary customer. Who wants a car that screams "family"? Families do quite enough screaming on their own, and cars that scream "family" form their own faintly listless genre. The X5? Screams "family". "Well-upholstered family", maybe, but still "family". The Toyota Previa? Screams "family" until its bumpers fall off. The Volvo V70? Screams "family" so loud it keeps other families awake. A grey roof box with absolutely anything underneath it? Screams family to the point where blood vessels burst in its cheeks and an ambulance has to be called. The ultra-smart X6, with its front-to-back coupé-style flow and feline prowl, does not scream "family". But what does it scream? Well, money, obviously. Confident business executive with a strong sense of entitlement and a house in Surrey, too. And it screams "road tax changes, what road tax changes?" It wouldn"t be entirely fair to say that it screams "footballer"s third car", but it definitely whispers it. You can see it parked in front of the newly built, six-berth garage along with the Bentley Continental and the Audi R8. And it is, of course, a fantastic machine, offering politically insensitive quantities of acceleration and unearthly amounts of comfort. During a test day in Scotland, we were encouraged to thrust our X6 round a tight course defined by cones in order to assess the full majesty of its Dynamic Performance Control - a system that basically leaps around the car, supplying drive to the wheel that most needs it on an ad hoc basis. We were then offered a "compare and contrast" exercise in an old X5. The difference was spectacular. Flipping between the obstacles with a casual nudge of the steering wheel, the X6 offered the kind of rabbit-avoiding agility that you might expect, perhaps, from a low-slung sports car. From a 4x4 with a boot bigger than a VW Touareg"s, it seemed almost preposterous. As a result, the X6 (larger, in fact) seemed smaller to drive than the X5 by a factor of about four. Honey, they shrunk the car. Next step: shrinking the kids. BMW X6 xDrive30d Price £41,965 Top speed 137mph Acceleration 0-62 in 8 seconds Average consumption 34.4mpg CO2 emissions 217g/km Eco rating 4/10
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