TG's guide to concepts: the startling BMW X Coupe

Do we owe the BMW X Coupe a bit of a collective apology? Perhaps.

See, in 2001 this was as much an affront to BMW afficianados as painting a V8 M5 pink, nailing on a nylon tail and calling it the My Little Pony edition. The X Coupe, and its American designer Chris Bangle, copped an awful lot of flack for this four-wheeled rhinocerous.

Yet here we sit fifteen years later, in the wake of the 2016 Paris motor show, where BMW revealed – to some acclaim – the X2 concept. A small, angry-looking hunkered-down crossover hinting at go-anywhere kudos while succeeding as a fashionable, sporty-driving town car. Remind you of anything?

A tall, coupe-ish crossover-cum-sports car wannabe isn’t an oddity in 2016, even if traditionalists still find the idea a bit of a flick in the eye. In 2001, the very principle was far less proven. And then there’s the styling. Flame Surfacing, the angular, concave trademarks of Bangle that were inspired by the dancing shapes of an ‘energetic flame’, would prove to be one of the most love/hate design trends in car history, and this car gave us our first, er, burn. 

In fairness, the X Coupe still looks relatively modern, and there are nods to the Z4 and X3 lurking in the creased and curving metalwork, proving concepts cars have more purpose than letting a car designer unleash their wildest fantasies upon the world free of pesky issues like ‘safety’ or ‘producing one for less than a million pounds’. And it’s even practical, too. Who wouldn’t want a giant asymmetric one-piece clamshell for a bootlid?

As this is an early-2000s concept car, it has a diesel engine. Yep, diesel was the future once, as politicians insisted carbon emissions were slashed and then talked loudly over the engineers as they pointed out that more damaging NOx and particulate emissions would result. Here we’re talking about the 3.0-litre straight-six from the contemporary 530d, good for a relatively modest 184bhp and 332lb ft. A five-speed automatic gearbox offered drive to all four wheels, y’know, because ‘X’ in BMWspeak means 4x4, and this is the X Coupe – you get the idea.

Tech-wise, the X Coupe boasted adaptive headlights which swiveled their gaze depending on where the GPs told them to look, and brakelights that reacted to how hard the driver braked by illuminating more and more LEDs. Not even the latest 7-Series does that. 

Has time been kind to the X Coupe? Certainly, it seems less controversial, less willfully silly in 2016. And that’s likely because you’ll be able to buy an almost direct descendant of this flame-surfaced trailblazer early next year. How times change.