Here's the tail end of a review of the new BMW X5 from Jeremy Clarkson:

BMW X5

Living in the city and buying an off-roader is like permanently wearing a condom for the one day a month you might get lucky

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The X5, then, should still be viewed as a five-seater, and a pretty good one at that. But one day while I had it, I found myself sitting in a jam – the A3 was closed again – next to a Mercedes ML 63, and I thought: “Hmmm. Yet another American-made German five-seat off-road car. And given the choice, I’d take the Merc. It’s better looking, smaller and that engine is just so joyously mad.

But of course, I wouldn’t. What I’d actually do, without a moment’s hesitation, is buy a Range Rover. You sit higher up in the big Brit, and because Land Rover does not make ordinary cars, there’s no sense when you’re on board that you’re simply driving a taller version of a humdrum saloon. But you definitely get this impression in an X5, which feels like a 5-series, and that means it doesn’t feel particularly robust.

Worse. At one point I was forced onto a kerb by a bus driver who set off without looking – surprise, surprise – and instead of just popping onto the pavement, the Beemer simply gouged huge chunks out of its front offside alloy wheel. I would like to make the bus driver pay for this. Actually, I’d like to see one done for attempted murder. But either way, BMW’s big rugged off-roader was damaged by a kerbstone, and that really shouldn’t happen.

It makes you wonder. Next time the road ahead is closed, could you escape up the embankment and across the fields in an X5? I think not. But in a Range Rover you could. I know, because I’ve done it.

Full article here: http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol...cle2791661.ece