The Crossovers you didn’t know you wanted
SUVs are popular, extremely popular. Now this may be the understatement of the century, but go with me here. With many brands dropping once popular sedans in favor of the increasingly popular compact and mid-sized SUVs the SUV trend looks to have no end in sight. And now with less sedans and other body styles to make hotted, more and more brands letting their performance divisions loose on their SUVs.
Super SUVs are picking up steam lately with a hotter version of nearly everyone’s mid-sized SUV. Mercedes has been doing this for years with their AMG versions of the GLC, G-Wagon and (formerly) M-class SUV. All of the other brands have jumped on the bandwagon in the past few years with the release of models like the Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrofolio, Audi SQ5, Maserati Levante Trofeo and the Lamborghini Urus, among many others. BMW is just the most recent to join the performance SUV party.
BMW released the X5 M and X6 M in 2018 and recently BMW has been giving almost everything the M treatment lately, including the M850i, the M750i and the M5 Competition. Most of these M treatments are simply visual differences and not really any performance increases. BMW has now applied the M treatment to the X3 and X4.
BMW has just released the all new BMW X3 M Competition and X4 M Competition. They are, simply put, stunning both inside and out. While the changes are largely cosmetic, the result is incredible. I have not yet seen one in person, but the images show an amazing amount of detail that has been put into the interior and exterior changes that help accentuate the aggressiveness of the whole package.
There have been changes under the hood as well. A tuned version of the 3.0l inline 6 found in the standard X3 now puts out 503 hp and 442 lb-ft of torque allowing the hefty 2096 kg curb weight to go from 0-100 kph in just 4.1 seconds. Quad exhaust tips have been added at the back to help all of those burnt dinosaurs get out of the engine more efficiently. Surprisingly the X3 M and X4M Competition both get a combined fuel economy of just 10.5 l/100 km. While that’s not great, and will be significantly worse if most of your driving is done around town, it’s not terrible either. I get worse fuel economy in my minivan that has half the horsepower.
BMW apparently expects that the X3 M Competition to become their best selling M product. While I agree that this will be very popular, it slightly disheartens me to think that the high performance world of the future is dominated by SUVs and not cars.
As soon as I can get my hands on one I will make sure to do a review and share my experience with all of you.
If you have any thoughts on the new BMW X3 M Competition, leave them in the comments below.
