Category: Small 4x4s 
Price Range: £27,870 to £39,170
Remarkable roadholding and handling, smooth engine, covetable looks, surprising off-road ability.
Inappropriately cheap-looking fittings, unacceptable ride comfort, overpriced.
Intriguing entrant to the ranks of soft-roaders, but BMW is stretching its premium credentials a little too far here.
The BMW X3 is a little bigger than a Land Rover Freelander, similar in size to a Jeep Cherokee - and more expensive than both. It takes the X5 idea - some off-road capability but optimised for on-road driving with a sporting edge - and reinterprets it one size-class down.
Its underskin design is derived from that of the last-generation (E46) 3-Series, but suitably enlarged and strengthened. And of course it has permanent four-wheel drive, via a new xDrive system, which near-instantly apportions drive to the axle with the grip to use it the best.
In a new move for BMW, the X3 was co-developed by, and is built under contract at, the MSF (Magna Steyr Fahrzeugtechnik) operation in Graz, Austria. Formerly the Steyr Daimler Puch organisation but now independent of DaimlerChrysler, MSF also builds the 9-3 Convertible for Saab, among other things. Word is that BMW will build the next-generation model, expected mid-2008, in-house, however.
The X3 had a minor upgrade in September 2006, when it gained a smartened-up interior and improved equipment levels.
Latest Readers' Drives About the BMW X3
wrote on 25 11 2007