As I type this, the country is gripped with panic onaccount of a light dusting of snow. No doubt it will all be gone by the time you read this, but it’s the one time of year when your neighbour with his quattro badge has some justification for that smug grin.
BMW’s much-vaunted 50-50 weight distribution is all very well for ultimate handling but really not much help trying to get a 530 Touring up a steep frozen driveway. It’s always been a shame that our habit of insisting on having the steering wheel on the right has denied us most of the 4x4 BMWs over the years, although this month we couldn’t have picked a more appropriate subject for this month’s buying guide in the shape of the facelifted version of the original X5.
I remember visiting the Spartanburg factoryto drive the new car, where our photographer managed to get one well and truly stuck in a ditch. Watching a couple of BMW’s US staff wrestle with the manual box and right-hand Welcome P55 drive of our UK-spec car was comedy itself, but to be fair the high-tech xDrive set-up pulled the thing free without any assistance from John Deere.
These earlier X5s are an attractive brand of new-generation technology and affordable value, but if the image of the big SUV has you worried, then its smaller brother the X3 fits neatly into this month’s feature on getting yourself into a current-shape BMW model without spending the earth. Yes, the X3 was derided at launch but as we’ve discovered it has matured into a neat little package and even in a nice spec can be yours for the price of a Korean family hatch. I know which I’d rather be trying to get up my frozen driveway.

Paul Wager