Marking The Spot

Practical, Luxurious, Comfortable… and With a Pair of Loud Pipes

- Kartik Ware

It’s not often that I stray from trying to be relevant. Okay, at least I somewhat try not to. But the crackling roar of a pair of loud exhausts throws all notions of pertinence right out of the greedily-open window. Yes, the xDrive 20d is the one we Indians will buy the most. But that doesn’t matter when you hear the new X3 M40i startup with a boom and settle into an idle that massages eardrums with the gratifying sound of petrol-powered internal combustion. Some things make sense long before you even touch them, and this car is one of them.

BMW calls the X3 a Sports Activity Vehicle, but I like my categories to be standard so I’ll call it what everyone who looks at it will refer to it as — an SUV. I still think it’s more ‘crossover’ than ‘SUV’, and perhaps hence the need to substitute ‘utility’ with ‘activity’. But whatever it is, this one’s got M-callipers peeking out from between the spokes of those giant 20-inch wheels. You just gotta love it. And just in case it wasn’t clear, this is the updated, third-generation X3. But I’m sure you could tell.