BMW X6 Rear Trunk spied

When one of BMW’s X6 prototypes appeared to become not functioning on the shoulder of a devastated California road, its engineers ran into a little hassle and bustle in the 128-degree desert heat. The preoccupied testers accidentally left the prototype's rear hatch open as they prepared to hook up a tow line to its X5 support vehicle. As a result, it revealed the true shape of the X6's rear quarter panel pillars and tailgate. And that is because of a timely sequence of drive-by shots of our folks at the World Car Fans (www.worldcarfans.com). I thank the automotive website for grabbing those shots. Had it not been for those, I may not able to write this article.

And now, it is exactly completely clear how much of the rear camouflage is simply a hard plastic shell, or should I say, most of it.

This contour is specifically interesting on the X6, because BMW is applying an aggressive application of the four-door-coupe concept that was first seen on the Mercedes CLS, to the SUV genre. The X6 is taking a unique styling approach which appears to be the most form-over-function SUV design effort seen to date, though there have been a number of performance-minded SUVs on offer. After the B-pillar, the roof line begins arching downward and continues plunging right to the X6's rising waistline. As a result, the second-row headroom and rear cargo volume are both severely compromised.

Due to the BMW X6’s heavy camouflage paneling, it is still hard to get the emotion of the vehicle’s overall design; it will still take more than an open hatchback to do that. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to catch how BMW stylists can balance the design in an attractive way, given the heavy SUV front and the slimmed down rear.