Style Conundrum

The design of the X4 is an interesting amalgamation of an SUV and a coupé. But, apart from the striking design, does the X4 offer substantial changes over to its more ‘regular’ sibling? We drive the brand-new one to find out.

- Ishan Raghava

Style, or rather a sense of what’s stylish, can be an intensely personal thing. And, more often than not, one’s idea of style has its origin in a desire to stand out, to be perceived as different from the rest. Now, with the advent of social media, that desire to stand out is perhaps becoming so intense that soon standing out in a blingy Ed Hardy t-shirt in a world full of sober Ralph Lauren polos will be the new normal.

This obsession with this idea of being different has seeped into virtually all aspects of our lives – whether it’s our choice of clothing, holiday destinations or phones. But, perhaps, it’s gone to its extreme in our choice of automobiles. So, even with SUVs seeing an exponential surge in their popularity in the past two decades, it’s no longer good enough to drive just any SUV – what you actually need is an SUV that stands out from the crowd. And the more outlandish it looks, the better it is!

Dressed for success

To give credit where it’s due, BMW’s designers saw this trend coming before anyone else in the automotive world. One could always argue that it was actually the Lamborghini LM002 that set the trend, but in truth that was way ahead of its time. So, what did BMW do? It tapped into this market with the first generation X6, which was launched in 2008. Despite its oddball looks, the X6 was a runaway success in global markets and was quite popular in India too. As a result, it managed to create a sub-segment in the larger SUV space – the Coupé-SUV, or, as BMW likes to call it, the Sports Activity Coupé.