I can admit when I’m wrong and I was wrong about the BMW X2. When I first drove it, I couldn’t imagine the customer that would want such a thing. It was uglier than the X1, far less practical, and more expensive, while not really being any more fun to drive. However, it turns out style is far more important to people than I had realized and the X2 sold well enough for BMW to give it a second generation. The new car was recently spotted doing some camouflaged testing at the Arctic Circle and it looks interesting. (We don’t own the spy photos but they can be seen here)
The first-gen BMW X2 looked like a hatchback that got stung by bees in all the wrong places. It was strange and frumpy looking, with an upside down grille and oddball proportions. This new car, though, looks significantly different. I cant’ say it will look better, but it’s certainly not going to look worse.
You can see in these new photos that the new BMW X2 will have a far different overall profile, one that’s similar to the BMW X4. In fact, just from looking at these spy photos, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was the next-gen X4. The X4 isn’t exactly a beauty queen itself but it’s better looking than the freakish X2. So making the X2 more like the X4 was a good move by BMW.
It also seems to have pretty normal BMW grilles. They’re not overall large, their shaped normally, and their connected to the headlights. So they look good, much better than the grilles found on cars like the 4 Series Gran Coupe.
We know that this car is the X2 M35i version, which will be the second-generation of such a car. The engine will no doubt have enough power to make it sporty and fun but its chassis is the only question mark. Last time I drive the X2 M35i, I was on an autocross course and I found it to be pretty bad at the limit. It undeterred too much, It felt too tall an sloppy, and it just ultimately ruined my confidence in the car. So here’s to hoping that BMW works out the handling kinks for the BMW X2 and manages to inject the same sort of fun it does into other SUVs.
[Source: Car Scoops]