Jeremy Clarkson doesn't like the X5 M...read why
Jeremy Clarkson isn't my favorite type of car journalist. His reviews are funny and entertaining but sometimes they are almost racist and not very seldom pretty biased.
His X5 M is quite interesting: he compares the X5 M to the M5. Ouch.
Just read some of the bits I extracted from his review:
The X5 M pulls off a similar trick. There is simply no other big SUV that goes, steers, stops or turns even half as well as this. You can fling it into bends and while the traction control is already ready to step in and stop you having too much fun and games, you can get the back to step out of line and sit there, in a controlled slide, just like you can with an M5 saloon.
Actually, I’m being silly. It’s nothing like an M5. An M5 is 5,000 times better in the bends because it’s lower and therefore has the laws of physics on its side. The X5 M is good for an SUV, and that’s it.
The engine is particularly notable as this is the same unit that will be fitted to the next M5 — due to go on sale in 2011. It’s a 4.4-litre twin-turbocharged V8 so you get lots of power, tons of torque and fewer carbon dioxides than you did from the back of the V10.
The best thing, though, is the complete absence of turbo lag. When turbos first came onto the scene — in a BMW incidentally, unless you are an American, in which case you will claim it was on a Chevrolet — there was always a pause from the moment you put your foot down to the moment anything happened.
Sometimes, in the case of Saab’s turbo, the pause was about a year, and we accepted this because it was bound to take time for the exhaust gases to spool up the fan that would drive another fan forcing more air into the engine. Well, in modern turbocharged engines, the pause is all but gone. In the BMW, it has gone completely.
There are, of course, a few downsides to its new-found sharpness. Like it’s fitted with fat tyres that render the car utterly useless in a field and are fairly hopeless everywhere else too. On a bumpy B road, the ride is so firm, you find yourself hanging on to the steering wheel just to stop yourself being bounced out of the seat. It’s not good enough, this. Not by a long way.
That said, I don’t really think the X5 M makes much sense except on a track, where it doesn’t make half as much sense as the cheaper, better M5, which, incidentally, comes with just as many seats.
Like the original, it’s clever from a technical standpoint but times have to be good for a car like this to make sense. And they aren’t. So it doesn’t. If you need a tall off-road car, buy a Range Rover diesel. If you need a five-seater that is fun, buy an M5. Don’t try to buy something that combines both things because what the X5 M proves is that really, it can’t be done.
Thanks, Jeremy. Comparing the X5 M with the M5 really makes sense. Greetings from my wife and the kids: they prefer the X5 M over the M5. 
--
RC (Germany) - Rennteam Editor 997 Turbo, BMW X5 M (03/2010), BMW M3 Cab DKG, Mini Cooper S JCW
): 
