There are plenty of people ready to be cynical about lifestyle SUVs and the Crossover models that copy them but reality is that without these kinds of cars, the 4x4 market would have petered out here long ago. With the X1, BMW looked carefully at the most affordable end of this sector and produced a product carefully designed to suit, a more sophisticated design of higher quality in the post-2012 facelifted first generation guise we're looking at here.
Inevitably, the Munich maker wanted premium prices for this car, but it still remained a relatively affordable way into BMW's SUV family and provided most of what was offered in the brand's more conventional 3 Series Touring estate - for a lot less money. Plus of course it handled better than a car of this kind had any right to do. Mind you, any company capable of turning something Range Rover-sized into a sportscar was hardly going to struggle with something this small. This X1 even boasts a set of economy and environmental figures strong enough to silence the green lobby. It is in short, like it or not, a car of our times. Let's see how these later first generation models stack up as a used buy.
14 окт 2024
