BMW X3 M will be the 'M3' of SUVs

The new six-cylinder engine in the BMW X3 M and X4 M produces the same power, but a peak torque figure up to 100Nm behind the pair's closest rival, the Mercedes-AMG GLC 63.

Yet BMW M president, Markus Flasch, remains unconcerned. Speaking with Australian journalists in a teleconference last week, Flasch offered his view that the BMW X3 M holds an advantage over its competitor from Stuttgart.

"Personally, I like V8 engines..." Flasch told carsales during a teleconference call last week, "but I still think that a straight six – something that the competition would also like to have… [is] an iconic engine, a high-performance engine.

"When we talk about the X3 M or the X4 M, where the direct competition offers a V8, price-wise you don't miss anything in our cars.

"It's the other way around. The advantage of our car in this segment is not just the more economical fuel consumption, but it's less weight in the front of the vehicle that makes the X3 M much more fun to drive than V8-driven cars, so I don't see a disadvantage there. I see an advantage on the performance and the fuel economy side."

Australia will likely be a strong market for the X3 M and X4 M, given our preference for SUVs and our love of high-performance vehicles. This has elevated Australia to fourth place in the world for sales volumes of BMW M cars and second place as a percentage of market share. Currently, the best selling BMW M vehicle in the world, and in Australia specifically, is the X3 M40i – not an out-and-out M car so much as an M Performance model. It speaks to the increasing importance of SUVs (or SAVs, as BMW prefers to label them) in the BMW range.

"SUV sales are very important for BMW M," Flasch acknowledged.

"We've found a way to not just put high-output engines in SUVs, but we've found ways to distinguish the character of these cars to basically give you... the driving dynamics based on sedans...

"This was also the target for the X3 and X4 M development. We didn't want to create just an M version of the X3, we wanted to create the M3 in an SAV ['Sports Activity Vehicle'] segment. I think we've achieved that goal and this is how we'll go forward. This is why SUVs are so relevant...

"We have customers that live in surroundings with bad roads, customers that want to transport mountain bikes and skis. For those customers an M high-performance SAV is the perfect vehicle – and we will see more of those SAVs in future..."

The turbocharged petrol engine powering the X3 and X4 M variants is an inline six-cylinder, dubbed S58 in BMW's internal coding system. It's the same engine that will power the next M3 and M4 and produces peak output of 375kW and 600Nm.

"The S58 engine is our new icon... the engine is pretty much brand new," Flasch declared.

"We made sure that we achieved a character of a high-revving, torquey straight six so that you won't have the feeling of just [low-end] and [mid-range] torque... it will have very nice torque distribution towards the top of the redline. This was a great challenge [with] turbocharging...

"We have kept only a few components from the S55 engine... we would call it 95-97 per cent brand new."