This is probably not the best time for me to be writing about BMW. You don’t want to know why. Okay you do, then.

This week I am supposed to be testing a 130 hatchback. Nice car, well worked out and also apparently magical. It can vanish.
These are the things that happen in this game. And don’t think it’s just about not having some natty wheels for the week. There are readers in Middlesbrough, Coventry, Newcastle, Birmingham and a few other places expecting a dose of the deathless prose, which won’t be as planned.
It all started with a delivery driver on the line saying he was at the Oxford dispatch depot and there was no car. What’s more no one even knew where the car was.
That’s grand, £30k worth of motor apparently consumed by a rift in the space-time continuum.
BMW’s press office did know where it was. They had it. Oh good, but it’s 4-30pm and I’m finishing at 6-30pm. You are in Bracknell and I am in Liverpool. Shall we be powering up the Tardis?
Apparently not because now we have now run out of delivery drivers. After the style of Janet and John: “Have you ever travelled home on a train full of inebriated Grand National punters? Stephen has. See Stephen grabbing the man’s shooting stick....Oh dear that must have hurt.�
On then to the new, and some say unique, BMW X6 which goes on sale on May 31.

This is called a Sports Activity Coupe and costs from £42 to £47 grand with 3-litre i petrol and 3.5 diesel engines. There is a huge five-litre V8 with no price as yet.
Actually it’s not a first. The new SsangYong Musso fits the same bill. But in the eyes of European aristo-manufacturers it is made from recycled woks and so does not count.
To be honest I don’t know what to make of this. Less bling than a Rangy and smaller than an Audi Q7 I would like to say it looks fit for the job in hand. I just can’t work out what that job is.
What I would say, and this is not a poke at BMW, is that this is what you get when the driving palate becomes jaded. It’s a niche within a niche. Look at the pictures. You decide.
It is, needless to say, a masterpiece of engineering innovation. The X6 has one of the world's most advanced four-wheel drive systems, using a multi-plate clutch and individual planetary gear sets in the rear axle to apportion power and torque to the most appropriate wheel, both under power and when decelerating. It also powers the outside rear wheel to reduce understeer, and with the dynamic performance control it will cut the power and drive the outside wheels in the bend when there is a danger of the vehicle sliding.
The X6 also has hill-descent control, traction control and brake apportioning systems that will at least allow owners to extricate themselves from some tight spots. It is intriguing and I will endeavour to drive the X6 soon for your further edification.
Always assuming it does not get lost on the way.

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