Special Car, auto, cars, vehicles

Don't get me wrong, the X6 -- in this case the six-cylinder version -- is an impressive piece of work. The 3.0-liter turbocharged engine is smooth and torquey and punches the X6 hard away from the lights. The ride is beautifully controlled, a huge improvement on the first-gen X5, which bounced around like a Conestoga wagon on the Oregon Trail. It changes direction with near sport-sedan alacrity.

But driving the BMW X6 hard is a bit like watching an elephant tap dance -- you're left faintly bemused by the whole act, but not entirely sure it belongs anywhere outside a circus. I couldn't help wonder how much time and effort it took the BMW engineers to make this 4894-pound truck perform like, well, a BMW. More to the point, I wondered whether deep down the BMW engineers, car guys all, thought the X6 a waste of their talent. You see, good as it is, the X6 is still a truck. A perfectly pointless truck.

A Ferrari 599GTB has a point. A Toyota Prius has a point. A Ford F-150 has a point. But what, exactly, is the point of a BMW X6? Despite all the clever engineering, it still manages to artfully combine all the disadvantages of a tight-fitting coupe with all the downsides of a big SUV. The result is a vehicle that can't go off-road or carry as much stuff as a regular SUV and doesn't quite go around corners as well -- or use fuel as efficiently -- as any comparable BMW car.

I guess the point the X6 proves is the auto business has long ceased to be about transportation. The auto business is really a fashion business. The X6 exists only because BMW's marketing mavens are convinced there are enough of you out there who want an SUV that thinks it's a coupe. And judging by the approving looks and thumbs up grins our test X6 is generating on L.A.'s streets, it seems they might be right.

Hold on. What about a Ferrari 599GTB? Or an Audi R8? Yes, I love them both, but I know I'll never be able to afford to own either. The M3 is different. Sure it's expensive -- the car I was driving this morning stickers at $72,795 -- but I like to dream that once the kids are through college in a couple of years, I might just be able to make that nut if I work hard enough.

I liked the new M3 from the moment I drove it in Spain last year. But the dual-clutch transmission takes the car to a whole new level, providing the perfect synthesis between the hair-trigger 4.0L V-8 under the hood and the preternaturally alert, agile chassis.

I ran close to 100 miles on deserted switchback roads this morning, and this car made me feel like Robert Kubica on a qualifying lap. I went deeper under brakes, punched harder out of corners, pinballed faster through switchbacks than I've ever done before, the transmission firing off shifts as fast and crisp as those in Kubica's BMW Sauber F1 racer as I fanned the paddles.

In full commando mode (a button on the center console allows you to choose from five different shift speeds), you get a touch of shift-shock as the transmission harnesses the rotational inertia of the engine as it sheds revs to ensure there's absolutely no delay in forward motion. Downshifts are accompanied by an instantaneous explosion of revs.

Default setting is midway between race fast and schmooze slow and delivers the same neat shifts as you get in the VW and Audi dual-clutch trannies. In schmooze mode, it's as seamless as a CVT, a million times better than the dull-witted SMG that blights the M5, and making the regular six-speed stick feel like you're wrestling a tire iron through a drum of molasses.

Would I take the dual-clutch M3 over the similarly priced Nissan GT-R? In a heartbeat. The GT-R is an awe-inspiring piece, a triumph of technology. But it's about as engaging to drive as a PlayStation console: a curiously soulless contraption that staggers you with its sheer performance, but leaves you wondering whether it actually needs you behind the wheel at all.

And the more you drive the big, heavy GT-R, the more you become aware an awful lot of computers are working awful hard to keep the whole thing on the road. You feel sheer mass working against the Nissan every time you change direction, and the gigabytes sweating to keep up. It works its front tires very hard, and all the on-board systems are designed to convince you otherwise.

The M3 is lighter, more agile, more truthfully tactile. There's more front-end grip and more clarity in the steering. You know exactly what every corner of the car is doing, all the time. Caught out by a vicious crest on the exit of a swooping turn, I felt the M3 get airborne, then felt it land, cat-like, the touchdown of each wheel clearly telegraphed. On this morning's roads -- sometimes smooth and sweeping, but more often lumpy and laden with tight curves and sudden heaves and crests -- I truly doubt the GT-R would have been much faster.

And when the fun finishes; when you have to schlep back down the freeway, or through stop-start traffic downtown, the M3's the far nicer car to live with. The ride, though still firm, is more compliant, and there's far less crashing and banging from the suspension. The BMW's transmission has none of the audible grumbling and clunking of the GT-R's dual clutch unit, either. The M3's rear seat is more useable, and so is its trunk.

The GT-R looks like it jumped off the pages of a manga comic. The M3 is as suave as George Clooney in a Brioni tux. It's at once a truly inspiring sport sedan and a genuinely relaxed, sophisticated daily driver. Now, where's that 401(k) paperwork?

BMW's new SUV without the "U" doesn't really know what it is. It's big and immensely heavy (nearly 5000 pounds), yet seats only four (sort of) and offers limited luggage space in back. It's pricey enough to char your American Express Black Card: more than $63K as-tested with the twin-turbo six and easily a good $10 grand more for a similarly optioned twin-turbo V-8 xDrive 50i. It rides tall like an off-roader, but would prefer not to get dirty. Visibility is limited, particularly to the rear. The sport-biased chassis will hammer your backside if the tarmac picks up any lint.

And yet...on the right road the X6 performs as if it never heard of Sir Isaac Newton. 5000 pounds? So what? Even with the "base" twin-turbo six, the X6 whooshes to 60 mph in just 5.9 seconds (engine and six-speed auto flow and fly like a champion figure-skating pair).

Handling prowess can be breathtaking; more than one driver remarked that the X6 hoovered through turns "easily 10 or 15 mph faster than anything else." Yes, the X6 has its charms.

So do you think the 2009 BMW X6 ultimately has what it takes to take home the title of 2009 Motor Trend Sport/Utility of the Year? Find out who the winner is at midnight eastern time on Oct. 16.

The 2009 BMW 750Li is a bit like that: It carefully airbrushes away everything that made its predecessor, the E65, one of the most confronting BMWs ever built. The "Bangle Butt"? Psssht! The tank-like proportions? Psssht! The dash that looks like a piece of furniture; the column-mounted shifter; the odd-ball seat controls: Psssht! Psssht! Psssht! All gone. Walk around the new 7 Series, and it's as if the E65 had never existed. (Note: the new 2009 7 Series is pictured at left, the E65 7 Series is pictured below)

The irony is the E65 has been the most successful 7 Series in BMW's history. Despite continual carping from the world's automotive media over the car's uncompromising aesthetic, BMW has sold over 344,000 units worldwide. America liked the E65 a lot -- the U.S. accounted for 35.7% of total sales, more than twice the number of the second most popular market, China. Germany? BMW's home market accounted for just 13% of total sales.

BMW is clearly hoping the new 7 Series will build on that momentum -- and win over buyers put off by the E65's confrontational design and counterintuitive user interfaces.

If that's the case, first impressions suggest BMW is on target with the new 7 Series. Everywhere we went with the car during our drive in and around Dresden, Germany, the locals expressed their approval of the new design. They all knew about the old one; they all agreed this one looked better.

The final signoff of the E65's design happened amid huge turmoil at BMW in early 1999. First, chairman Bernd Pischetsrieder was forced to resign over the alarming losses at Rover Group, the ailing British automaker whose purchase he'd largely engineered. Within hours, product chief Wolfgang Reitzle, Pischetsrieder's logical successor, had blown his chance for the top job with an unbelievably ham-fisted attempt to secure the unquestioning support of the board. He, too, was shown the door. Joachim Millberg, a bureaucrat barely known outside BMW's iconic headquarters building in Munich, was made chairman.

The mercurial Reitzle, long regarded as one of the best car guys in the business, has always insisted privately he only approved the E65's design as an interim measure; that he always intended to go back and fix the 7 Series once Pischetsrieder was gone. "They have given my car sad eyes," was all he'd say on the record, referring to the E65's hooded headlight design. But most critics would argue the E65 needed a lot more than happier headlights.

Maybe Reitzle -- and the rest of the BMW board -- meant for the E65 to be deeply controversial; meant it to be a like-it-or-loathe-it design that no one could mistake for anything else. Why? Because they realized BMW had become one of the world's most successful and profitable automakers using a fairly singular design language and that they had run out of adjectives.

The turning point was the E46 3 Series. While the revisionists among my colleagues later lauded this car as one of the best-looking BMWs ever, that certainly wasn't the chatter around the dinner tables at the car's launch in Spain in 1998. Basically, the media view was the E46 was a ho-hum car to look at, just another cookie-cutter BMW and not enough of a step-change from the previous-generation model. For a company whose reliance on the 3 Series was total -- it still accounts for over half of total BMW sales -- the notion folks might be getting bored with it must have been worrying. Chris Bangle, the relatively new BMW design chief, was at the launch. He certainly heard the chatter.

You don't mess with success, however. Simply ripping up the 3 Series playbook would have been an unacceptable risk. The 7 Series was another issue, however. Here was a model that had always struggled in the shadow of Mercedes' all-conquering S-Class. Even the audacious 1987 launch of the 750i version, powered by the first German V-12 in more than 50 years, had failed to make a dent in the S-Class' blue-chip reputation and the world's best luxury sedan. Unveiling a bold, even shocking, new design language on its most expensive new model wasn't as counter-intuitive a move as it might have seemed: With the 7 Series BMW had nothing to lose.

The E65 7 Series changed the world's view of BMW and set in train the strategy to devolve BMW design away from the cookie-cutter system where each model range looked like a scaled version of the other, a strategy that would also allow BMW to move into new market segments such as SUVs. You can argue the relative merits of the various BMWs designed on Chris Bangle's watch -- some are way better than others -- but there is no doubt each is strikingly different from the other, while retaining a strong BMW design identity.

The E65 may have been a design too far, but you could argue it did precisely the job it was intended to do. The new 7 Series dials back the extremism and dials in some old-school BMW DNA, such as the long dash-to-axle ratio, stronger shoulders on the body side, lower H-point, and the center stack angled toward the driver. There's even an echo of the famed Hofmeister kink stamped into the C-pillar for emphasis. And this time, no one finds it boring.