Quote:
Originally Posted by Artemis
1996: - design idea pitched via a concept car;
- design idea rejected for production ("Seriously ?");
- concept car stored away from the public eye.
2021: - concept car exhumed after a quarter-century for an infomercial ("It was avant-garde").
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In 1996 it was blue sky thinking. The X5 was already in development and at BMW. The leadership were always forward thinking in where to go next? The Mercedes ML-Klasse was mere months away from launch at this point and there were no premium Performance SUVs on the market. But projections were pointing to how the SUV would perform on the market. But also how SUVs would hypothetically decimate segments. Which actually has become a reality.
The Concept shown is actually a beginning that eventually went through many evolutions to become the car the X6 is today.
The X6 of today is of course more market acceptable compared to this concept. But it's an fascinating insight into the tenure of BMW design under Chris Bangle. It wasn't all straight forward though as Bangle had to convince ultra conservative R&D chief Wolfgang Reitzle to invest in some of the more untoward and radical conceptual ideas to take BMW into the 2000's.