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2003 BMW X5 4.6i Full-Size Sport Utility Vehicle
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Think of it as a raucous sports car rigged with a boxy back bay under the disguise of a sport-utility wagon.
Of course, the X5 is what happens when BMW's performance-geared designers turn their attention to a SUV.
It looks remarkably like one of BMW's big sports sedans, only jacked up with a wagon's cargo compartment attached at the tail.
It's a broad and long four-door wagon that fits in the mid-size class of SUVs with a wheelbase stretching for more than nine feet and the wheel track over five feet wide.
The whole package measures about fifteen feet long by six feet wide and rises some five and a half feet high.
An engine fits in front of the four-door cabin that holds two rows of seats for up to five riders plus a rear cargo bay accessed through a clever clamshell tailgate.
What makes BMW's SUV different from convention concerns its unitized structure and the application of performance-oriented mechanical paraphernalia.
While a typical SUV rides on the chassis of a truck with a wagon's superstructure bolted on top, the X5 by contrast carries a unitized structure like a car with chassis and frame combined into a single entity that's innately strong and rigid.
It becomes a stable foundation for mounting the mechanical devices for power, suspension, steering, brakes and traction control.
Also, all components fit aboard in such a manner that weight is distributed ideally, with half loading on the front wheels and the other half on the rear ones. This perfect balance makes X5 extremely controllable through predictable patterns.
And the use of lightweight aluminum for independent suspension links pares the unsprung mass of this vehicle, which ultimately makes it stick better on pavement and glide more uniformly over road bumps.
Similar concepts and components apply to BMW's sedans and coupes to make them such sporty performers.
The first X5 rolled out of a BMW assembly plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, a coupe of years back badged as the X5 4.4i and packing a whopper of a V8.
Its 4.4-liter engine, with BMW's Double Vanos variable camshaft controller in place, in current editions produces 290 hp at 5400 rpm plus massive torque of 324 lb-ft at 3600 rpm. And all of that muscle channels through a five-speed automatic transmission with Steptronic dual-mode controls.
