BMW reaches for mini-iX design appeal and lots of digital interior tech in renewing its best-selling model
BMW’s decision to follow up the groundbreaking X5 with the smaller BMW X3 was a pivotal moment for a firm then best known for sharp-handling saloons and estates, paving the way for the subsequent huge expansion of its Sports Activity Vehicle – you know, SAV – line-up.Now, 21 years later, BMW feels defined by such models as much as its saloons: the X3 was its best-seller last year, with around 1000 sold each day. Really, the only thing BMW got wrong was the SAV tag it still insists on using – although as a publication still known as Autocar, we appreciate persisting with a moniker the popular lexicon has decided against.With typically Germanic efficiency of precise seven-year model cycles, the Mk4 X3 has arrived to offer fresh challenges to premium SUV rivals such as the Audi Q5 (which has just entered a new, hybrid-only generation), Porsche Macan et al.The most significant change for this new X3 is what’s missing: an electric version. While the new model retains the same multi-powertrain CLAR platform as its predecessor, the successor to the iX3 will arrive next year as the production version of the Neue Klasse X concept, the first in a line of radically restyled EVs using a bespoke platform.
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