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I've never really understood why anyone would buy a BMW X3. It's by no means a bad car - far from it, in fact. Sure, early ones looked a bit funny, the ride was unforgivably choppy and the interior had been built by Romanian peasants earning three ...

Good styling, decent economy, fun to drive, massively improved interior

Expensive, rather pointless, tiny boot, not an off-roader, poor relation to X5

Very competent and almost charming soft-roader that makes sense for the school run but not for anything else. Feels like one giant compromise

One of the problems with buying a luxury-nameplate SUV is that they're almost all quite large and bulky - but not the BMW X3, which has been extensively revised for 2007 with a fairly wide range of upgrades

Base price of an X3 3-litre i is $45,300 and the 3.0-litre Si costs $50,900. In general, the new X3 offers better value all-round than the old model

DRIVE a 4x4 and you expect a lot of things - but one of them isn't the pace of a hot hatch.

TASTE and fashion can change dramaticallyand few know more about this than BMW.

The new BMW X3 has undergone more than just a facelift - it seems that most of the internal organs have been updated too

Revised edition of the Sports Activity Vehicle ticks most of the executive boxes

Brand image, a 4x4 that handles like a sports car, brilliant and quiet diesel engine, excellent road holding and a precision drive, roomy, well equipped.

Expensive but will hold its price, ride comfort is firm.

NOT so long ago, drivers wishing to own cars of the all-wheel-drive persuasion were somewhat limited ...

Cabin has also been upgraded, with better-quality plastics

Probably not. It's good to drive and rapid, but BMW's biggest practical problem (ignoring the imminent arrival of Land Rover's Freelander 2) is the X3's better--looking and more desirable big brother, the X5, which costs barely any more. The ...

It's on a long, fast left hand bend where the BMW X3 really demonstrates that it's a proper driver's car. There's very little roll, the SUV taking the bend with body control that would impress in a regular saloon or estate car

But I have my reservations. Impressive as the handling is, the roads in Germany I drove it on were smooth and pock mark free. That's something that cannot be said for the majority of those in Britain. The previous X3's biggest problem was always its ...

It took BMW buyers a little time to realize that the famed Bavarian company had added an SUV to its lineup that's smaller than its X5 model. The new X3 is certainly a little more compact than its "bigger brother" but it lacks for nothing in luxury, ...

The 2005 model gets new aluminum sills embossed with the BMW logo; new colour combinations for bodywork and interior trim and new suspension settings to enhance the X3's ride while not lessening its handling ability. There's also an in-dash CD player ...