Highlights

Three-litre straight-six engine 313 bhp Seven seats ULEZ compliant Enormous load carrying capacity

Overview Sometimes you need a big car.

Sometimes you just want a big car.

And BMW have an answer to both of these callings in the form of the X5.

(Yes there’s an X7 as well, but that’s an enormous car, which is a category all of its own.) This long-established model first appeared on our roads way back at the end of the last millennium, and has been with us ever since — a steadfast piece of the automotive landscape. In the intervening 25 years lesser cars have come and gone, while the X5 has been sitting imperiously at the top of the tree, confident in its own self, unfazed by the changing world around it.

The basic formula has remained the same: being big, being quick, and being able to take up to seven passengers across a muddy field in comfort.

Or, to put it in more PH terms, carrying a bootful of tools and spares and towing your competition car. The example we see he...