Introduction/Overview:
Welcome back to the SimpleCarGuy channel. Today, I have something special, A BMW X6 M50i! It’s not a secret that I like small funky cars, so what am I doing with this high fashion SUV? Well, this one is a little bit different from the rest. Not only is it an SUV, but it’s also a COUPE in a way and oh yeah, it’s definitely funky. In this video, we will take a look at the exterior and talk about its distinctive looks, check out the interior, including the tech and other fun features, go over the engine and listen to that sweet V8 under the hood and then take it on a short little drive.
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Exterior:
Let’s start with the exterior. Some people believe that every new car, especially from a luxury brand like a BMW is beautiful. That has proven to be controversial when you take a look at the new 4 series with its gigantic grills and the same can be said for the rear of this car. The front of the X6 is unmistakably BMW with slightly oversized kidney grills and an evolution of the angel lights. It’s striking and aggressive and in this white color, it’s all on display. Car makers can get away with funky lines and some design choices by painting the car black or some other dark color, but here.. you can see it all. This brings us back to the rear of the car where there is a lot of this ‘design’. This X6 has quite a distinctive look that you really have to love. BMW clearly went for style over function with this design sacrificing the room and convenience of the X5 with the slopping rear hatch design. Even if you don’t love how it looks, which you should if you think of getting one, IT IS subjectively speaking quite interesting to look at.
Going around the car, there are a few things to pay attention to. At the front, we have these beautiful full LED or even optional laser headlights and of course full LED taillights in the back as well. I don’t even think there are any non-LED lights left on this car, but I could be wrong. Here at the back, we can also see the defuser that BMW puts on their M-Sport and M cars, it’s given the back a little more segmentation, which could be a good or bad thing. We can also see the quad exhaust pipes that fit into 2 pods. These sound fantastic, so stick around to hear it from the back as well as from inside the car. Another fake item on the exterior that I find kind of funny are the fake vents, not really sure why they would include these as BMW isn’t really know for these.
Thinking of other cars in this segment, what is the X6 really up against as far as looks? There isn’t anything very interesting other than the Lamborghini Urus, but that’s almost in a different category. I much better prefer this to the Mercedes GLE Coupe or the Audi Q8. I think we need to embrace cars and SUVs that look different. We can’t complain that all cars are boring and look the same but then also hate on the makers that try something different. Now, let’s go check out the interior and see what we can find.
Interior:
Alright, so what do we have here? From the start, it feels very rich and luxuries when you get inside and even though it’s very unique looking on the outside, it’s not nearly as unique on the inside. This X6 replaced the X5 I made a couple videos about a few months ago and you can clearly see the interior design has elevated in this generation car. It’s definitely not a complete overhaul, it’s more of an evolution, the screens got bigger, some buttons disappeared, but if you’ve been in a current gen BMW, you have experienced this interior as well. Of course, the fit and finish and the quality of the materials is on another level and it adds many extra features inside that separate it from the more basic BMWs, such as the heated door and middle armrests and it even has some unique features that are not found on the X5 like this door handle area. It feels big and spacious with these amazing 20-way adjustable seats that can adjust just about anything you’d ever want to adjust. (see if they have massage). Speaking of comfort, I think this M sport steering wheel is one of the best in industry, something you’d want to hold on to for hours at a time.
Now let’s take a quick look at the center console area. This interior feature 2 12-inch displays, one for instrument cluster and one for the iDrive or as BMW now calls BMW Live Cockpit Professional. You can control pretty much anything on this car from this screen, which BTW is a touchscreen, but luckily you can still use the physical controller to perform all functions, which I love. I’m also glad that the HVAC system hasn’t been completely moved to the iDrive and you still get physical buttons that you can hit while driving. They might be a little small, but thankfully the trend of removing physical buttons hasn’t hit BMW yet.
Being a new BMW, it has very impressive tech and one of my favorites is the backup and 360-degree camera system that overlays a 3D model making it kind of fun to use. Camera views can also be recorded and even viewed from the phone that has been paired to the car. The sounds system is just as impressive, it has nice deep bass and high-quality midrange and of course you can connect using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto to stream your favorite music.
Moving to the back, the seats here are actually fairly comfortable and have plenty of space for someone that’s 5’10 with a few inches to spare. No issues with leg room either even with the front seat generously moved back. The way they achieve this is by basically making bucket seats in the back, dropping you back and down a little so you actually do have plenty of space and don’t feel cramped at all.
Trunk space is of course not as big as the X5, but the owner of this vehicle was able to fit plenty of stuff while moving and remember, style over function.
Engine:
This new X6 comes with two different options for the engine, the B58 straight 6 turbocharged engine that’s in other M-Sport cars and also in the new Toyota Supra, but those are much smaller and lighter cars, so for this beast, you want the n63 TwinTurbo V8 engine.
It’s important to understand that this is the n63TU3 engine which is the updated version of the engine you got on the last gen 50i cars like my F10 550i. Of course, this one makes 80 more horsepower and 70 more pound feet of torque so it’s definitely been worked on since then. To be clear, it is not the S63 engine that comes on the X6 M, but I think that’s a good thing. Sure, you get less horse power, but these are much more reliable and cheaper to maintain and fix in the long run AND who can complain about 523 horses and 553 torques under the hood of a family car? That’s pretty insane if you ask me especially since you get M level performance with the room and comfort of an SUV.
This beast can get to 60 miles an hour in about 4 seconds if you use launch control, but sadly this isn’t my car, so I will not be showing you this as it is taxing on the transmission, BUT if we can get 1000 likes on this video, I will convince the owner to try it and we’ll make a video about it.
We don’t have any data yet, but with it being the 4th iteration of the N63 engine, it should be fairly reliable over the years and hopefully last a long time, but time will tell.
One thing I know this engine isn’t very good at is fuel economy. You won’t get what anyone would consider good fuel economy out of this, but honestly.. who cares. If you go for the m50i version, you clearly care more about the raw power aspect rather than saving dollars at the gas station. I think it’s finally time to start it up and see what it sounds like.
Exhaust Note:
Since this is an M-Sport car, the engine sound is very important to the overall experience. When you first start the car, you can hear the aggressive V8 rawr and come to live. It sounds great on the outside no matter where you are. On the inside, the engine sound is pumped in through the speakers, so it can sound very loud on the inside, but luckily it can be turned off and you get to hear real exhaust without any fakery. There are a few options to pick from, so you get to decided depending on who you have in the car and what kind of impression you’d like to leave on them. I’d probably turn it off completely and just enjoy the raw engine sounds.
Driving/Summary:
Woooohooo! Wow that is not something you expect from a 5200 pound SUV. The acceleration on this X6 feels very strong and it definitely pushes you into the seat even with half throttle. And the sound, it sounds like a hot rodded V8 when you punch it, yet it is refined to the highest German standards.
As most big BMW cars now-a-days, this SUV has xDrive and being in Chicago, this is a huge benefit and reassurance you won’t get stuck in the snowy winter. Luckily the xDrive here is rear biased, prioritizing the rear wheels and allowing for some fun and better driving characteristics balancing the car out by having the front wheels concentrate on the steering.
Being a big car, I was expecting it to drive.. well, like a big car. But honestly, it doesn’t, It feels like a very sturdy sedan. Somehow, BMW has managed to make this feel sporty. planted and handle well, especially in sport mode where the steering goes heavy. It reminds me of my e92 335 I had many years ago with it’s heavy hydraulic steering. Unlike the e92, you do sit very high up in the air and it almost feels like it wants to understeer, but all things considered, it’s really, really nice to drive, everything fits me perfectly and is very easy to reach from the driving position as well.
Other than the exhaust sound, it’s very quiet inside and some of these even come with the acoustic glass option, so you will definitely be very well insulated from the outside.
Well, that’s about all I have for now on the BMW X6 M50i, if you’d like to see more videos on this car, leave a comment down below and let me know what exactly you’d like to see. Don’t’ forget to subscribe for more car videos and I’ll see you in the next one.