By Selwyn Figueras

With abbreviations rife in car speak all over the world, its easy to feel a bit overwhelmed during the launch of a new car, marketing material awash with terms and codes you simply don’t understand. One thing you can rely on is that you at least understand the definition and description of the type of car you’re looking at, right? Coupe? Two door, sportier version of, inevitably, a bigger, more sensible ‘Saloon’ brother. SUV? Sports utility vehicle. We all love them and hate them all at once. We love the practicality and security of the big car feel yet increasingly find it harder and harder to justify the size, expense and environmental impact these ‘gas guzzlers’ represent.

So, we have a handle on describing cars then? Maybe not.

Thanks to BMW, you can now occupy yourself with another type of vehicle, a Sports Activity Vehicle, or SAV for the abbreviation obsessed. This new and latest offering from BMW is a crossover concept blending the elevated, 4X4 feel and practicality of an SUV with the sleek, sophisticated and far more delicate lines of a Coupe. Revealed at the Frankfurt Motor Show for the first time, the German car maker is certain this niche vehicle will be a top seller with many innovations, referred to as ‘efficient dynamics’ designed to make this new SAV as environmentally friendly as possible. BMW has applied innovative solutions to a number of aspects of the vehicle helping it reduce its impact on the environment by reducing emissions and maximising fuel savings, One of the various solutions applied and an illustration of the innovation applied by BMW’s engineers is ‘air vent control.’ Vents cut into the front of any vehicle for cooling purposes are bad news from an aerodynamics point of view, particularly for larger vehicles such as the BMW X6. Whilst the cooling requirements of modern cars are inescapable, BMW have designed a system that ensures that when ventilation is not required, vents at the front of the car are shut to maximise the aerodynamic efficiency of the design thereby reducing fuel consumption. Reduced rolling resistance tyres are another added solution making their debut on the new BMW X6.

Along with two petrol and two diesel engines, designed to give cars like the Porsche Cayenne and Range Rover Sport a run for their money, BMW will be releasing its first hybrid engined car in 2009. Along with the efficient dynamics program, the ActiveHybrid should prove one of the friendlier SAV’s (the only one?) out there, taking the game to the Lexus RX400h.

The first vehicles are expected to be delivered to lucky customers in May/June this year and you can find more details about the new BMW X6 at [http://www.bmw-x6.co.uk]. By then, the press will have had plenty of time to review theBMW X6 and either whet all our appetites with news of good things to come, or rain on BMW’s parade. Something tells me that BMW might just be onto another Bangle Blockbuster.