BMW chose Madras Motor Sport Club as the venue to launch its two new M cars – the X5M and X6M. A day prior to the launch, a sweltering hot day, we drove these two cars along with the existing M range cars in India. But before that there was some work to do. Rowing through spec sheet, it struck me how heavy these two M cars were. Which meant there was a lot of mass to deal with at 2.27 tonnes. Now that wasn’t a cause for concern, the weight can be taken care of by the torque – 76.4kgm in total – and the 567bhp. That also meant acceleration is in sportscar territory with both cars knocking off the 0-100kph time in 4.2 seconds. But the handling cannot be gravity defying, the tyres might have to go through a lot of abuse over the course of the day. To find answers to these questions I’d only get a couple of laps with these SUVs. Not enough time, but enough to frame a brief impression of the car.
It was driving time and first up was the X6M. The instructor ahead of us was in a diesel X6 and it seemed he was on the limits all the time, I felt each of those corners could have been taken much faster in the X6M. Its 4.4-litre V8 motor is quite responsive and it sounds nice when the revs start seeing high numbers. On the straights I could feel the V8 coming alive as the car charged ahead making a nice rumble. The eight-speed transmission though a bit jerky at slow speeds, reacts quickly to every jab on the paddles + or – as the pace builds. Also, my seat-of-the-pants judgement tells me the ride is quite stiff, expected of a car wearing low-profile
