Vote: Is the 2009 BMW X6 a car or an SUV?

looks like an 1988 AMC Eagle station wagon

Just proves that AMC and Subaru were ahead of their times.

What Jimmy said. We’ve been here before about 25 years ago.

Oh, one other thing: This car is not a coupe. Coupes have two (2) doors, not four (4), I don’t care what the automakers, or anyones else says.

I think it’s an SUV because the X5 and X3 are SUV’s, or SAV’s (Sport Activity Vehicles).

Looks like a Saab of years gone by. About time BMWs got some style.

Just what the world needs… Another 4 door Stupid Useless Vehicle, with a bloated, over-styled exterior and a small interior, along with less than stellar fuel economy and a large carbon footprint.
BMW needs to go back to their roots… High quality, fun to drive coupes & sedans with decent fuel economy.

The vehicle clearly looks like it is built on a car chassis, but with a body designed with enough trucky cues to make someone wonder whether it is really an SUV. Whatever.

But, I can’t let Alan’s very politically correct rant pass without comment: Alan, occasionally some of us in the real world must bring things home from Home Depot in our cars/SUV’s/crossovers. For that purpose, we need larger vehicles with open space in the back. Some of us even need trucks for hauling and towing.

When you get right down to it, fun-to-drive really doesn’t matter in our day-to-day traffic clogged world where tree-hugging geeks oppose any building of new highways. It only matters in the fantasy world of underage blogger-drivers.

First of all, the front end continues the current BMW trend of being butt-ugly. The twin-kidney grill is WAY too large. It looks like the snout of a wart-hog. If it needs to be that big just to get airflow to the radiator for cooling, there are much more elegant (and stylish) ways of doing it. Although I will admit it seems more egregious on the red one than it does on the green one. Perhaps color choice can mitigate that somewhat.

Second, Eric is correct. 4 doors = SEDAN, not COUPE.

Third, take a look at the interior photo of the drivers’ area. The transmission tunnel is HUGE. There appears to be room for about a size 9B foot down by the pedals. No way my 11 EEE’s are going to fit, even if my knee bent sideways enough to actually reach the throttle without hitting the brake at the same time.

Fourth, even if it IS built on a car chassis, the thing is an SUV. A “crossover” perhaps, but still an SUV. And not a very practical one at that. Look at how much the roofline slopes down over the back seat. I hope you never carry anyone over 5 feet tall back there, or they’re going to have a hell of a headache when their head slams against the roof when you hit a pothole.

Fifth has to be price. If you need a vehicle like this, there are plenty of options that will be half the cost. If you feel like spending the money this thing will probably take to buy, then you probably aren’t reading this right now, because you don’t give a fig what I think.

Interesting looking vehicle from Bimmer…some notes:

First, Eric and Brent: using your definitive technique for identifying coupes, would you then say that cars like the Mazda RX-8 and Mini Clubman are sedans? Didn’t think so.

As for this Deutsche masterpiece, I do believe this is the kind of vehicle the term crossover was coined for. A tall wagon, with an aggressive looking off-road wannabe nature. It does, however, resemble some of the tall boxes like the Dodge Caliber, that are only built tall to give drivers the “I’m sitting on my roof” feel. Two door concepts resembling this vehicle have been shown by Toyota and Mitsubishi in the past, but this one is a bit toned down from those. As for price, since we’re looking at at least $42-45k for the V6 and $55-60k for the V8, I say I’m out of the market anyway. But there are more viable (read: cheaper) alternatives. They just don’t come with a subscription to Roundel.

It’s a MINIVAN!

This may take off. You never know. Everyone is doing Bangle-butts now even though they remain ugly. BMW sells more cars now than ever and that is apparently what being in the car selling business is all about. Just ask Porsche.

Now might be a good time to buy a good ‘88 Eagle for the inevitable nostalgia price rise when this vehicle becomes a fashion statement. I can see Britney running over a few shopping carts in one of these.

To me it’s definitely a veeeery cool multi use vehicle, that would be a great (wealthy) family’s car. But Steve, be serious… no one is gonna load up this gorgeous and expensive car with replacement windows from Home Depot! If they’re able to afford this, they’ll pay the delivery charge or rent a small truck. This is a cool soccer mom, salesperson, skiing, etc. car, but defititely NOT A HAULER!!!

Well Skeeter, the Mini Clubman is not a coupe even in two door form. It’s a two-door hatchback. True coupes usually have a separate trunk.

As to the Mazda RX8, it isn’t a sedan, as the back doors don’t open independantly. You have to open the front doors first. I don’t necessarily mind the clamshell style back doors on a coupe. The main difference here is that there aren’t any exposed outside door handles on the back doors to mar the look of the car. At first glance, the car looks like a regular two-door car and retains that look using the clamshell doors.

This BMW, along with several other cars out there calling themselves 4-door coupes are nothing but sedans with a fast backlight. There used to be a name for cars like that years ago. They were called 4-door Hardtops. These new 4-door coupes are nothing more to me than today’s Hardtop sedan.

Sorry Eric, but you’re incorrect to a point, so I’m going to have to ask you to take another look at the Mini Clubman. It has three doors, not two, and is not a hatchback. The rear “doors” do not open as a hatch, they open dutch-style.

More to the point, the idea here is that a “coupe” is not clearly defined. Even mainstream periodicals such as C&D, MT, and R&T have gone to great lengths in the past to discuss how you cannot clearly define a coupe/sedan by the number of doors. Body style and number of seats have more to do with how a coupe is designated. Of unimportant, yet worthwhile, note is how manufacturers will use any number of alpha-numeric names/categories so their vehicles don’t fall into comparisons with others. This is why so many have tried to go with SAV, RAV, or any combination of the words Sport, Utility, Recreation, Activity, and Vehicle. But they’re all deeply rooted in the crossover genre. Even the X5 at its introduction was considered a crossover, but more sedate competitors have made the infamous Bimmer SUV seem more truck-like since then (including its own X3). I recall hearing a general rule in the auto industry of the late ’90s that an SUV was a body-on-frame design (truck-like). The emergence of crossovers consisted of vehicles that were unibody design (car-like).

The X6 here is clearly a unibody design, which, to answer the original question of the blog, makes this vehicle either a crossover or a car (regardless of its coupe/sedan identity).

As long as Mercedes calls its CLS a coupe, and BMW calls its two-door M3 a sedan, enthusiasts will go round and round on what is and what isn’t. This, in my opinion, is niether.

Skeeter, I hate to throw some uncalled for spice into your stew, but the Honda Ridgeline is a unibody constructed pick-up, does that mean it’s a pick-up car? I thought pick-up cars were Vettes on Sunset Blvd!!!

Whether it’s a car or an SUV one thing is for sure, it’s a mistake.

With its fastback styling, a normal-sized adult cannot possibly sit in the rear seat without leaning forward or bumping their head against the ceiling, just like in the Mercedes-Benz CLS.

Still neither of these vehicles are coupes. The CLS is a sport sedan and the X6 is an impractical and cramped SUV.

I stand corrected about the Mini Clubman. I also stand behind the remainder of my previous post. With it’s four-door design, the X6 IS NOT a coupe of any sort in spite of what methods BMW or any other auto maker uses to identify it.

I have to admit that a car with two-doors is not always a coupe. There have also been two-door sedans, and Hardtops. My 66 Dodge Charger is a two-door hardtop, not a coupe.

Quite possibly the ugliest vehicle adorned with a BMW marque.

Eric, I thought a hardtop was (is) a car with no post between the front and rear side windows. Detroit used to make both 2- and 4-door hardtops.

However, I agree that proper coupes have two doors. According to Webster:

1: a four-wheeled closed horse-drawn carriage for two persons inside with an outside seat for the driver in front

2: a 2-door automobile often seating only two persons; also : one with a tight-spaced rear seat

Aaron

Oh my god it does look like an ACM Eagle Wagon! Awful!To answer the question SUV

At first glance it looks like an Infinity FX35. That ain’t a car!

Okay, so in a bit of an “Aha!” moment for myself, it clicked when WhiteGrace said it resembled the Saab’s of old. I remember the body style that most resembles this one (albeit without the huge ground clearance). It was called the Combi Coupe, an old Saab design (and yes, it even had four doors). So take a little of BMW’s classic SAV family ground clearance, add in a heap of Combi Coupe verstality, sprinkle in some Bangle style and gloss, and you’ve got this ‘thing.’ Definitely more car than SUV going on here. Kudos to Brent and Skeeter for identifying the crossover prominance. Skeeter, maybe you’ve heard of SAE J1100 (Society of Automotive Engineers Standard)? Seems you did you’re homework with them, they identify coupes as you said, by design (mostly interior volume), not number of doors. This is a coupe to them. Not traditional logic, but I guess logic has nothing to do with half of the stuff sitting in dealerships these days!

It’s a CAV.

My ramble… It’s a CUV. Or not. Definitions are changing and being created so fast, who really knows. One of the “keys to success” in the automotive sales market is to find and dominate niches. These can be price points or categories (or both). Manufacturers are creating categories continuously to be able to claim “first in category ___”. Happens in most businesses all the time. AMC and Subaru were certainly ahead of their time. In fact it probably hurt their mass market sales early on because people couldn’t categorize those vehicles. I still have a hard time accepting Subaru’s marketing description of the Forester and especially the Outback Wagon as SUV’s though, even if they are fine, multi-use vehicles (hey, the MUV!). I had a woman describe to me her Ford Freestyle last year as “that’s my car…. wagon… SUV.. Thing!” – - another cross-category conundrum! So should we really care what anybody calls the X6? Do we really need an acceptable label to accept a vehicle? Or will BMW lovers love it just because it’s a BMW? And by the way, I also have a hard time accepting the term “Crossover Utility Vehicle”. Sounds too much like a true SUV in drag.

wow, that thing is ugly! I cant wait for that to be on the road so i can spot idiots a mile away.
The older X5 style was great and then the X3 was pretty cool but this is over the line. The X6 is laughable.

In my opinion, an SUV has 4 wheel drive for off road ventures (Sport), and a large cargo area to haul your stuff (Utility). Should have the ability to tow a boat or trailer, and lots of horsepower to pass anything on the road, except a gas station. If the Auto industry needs to put these hideous cars in a category, call it like you see it “Butt-Ugly”.