According to the report from the wily spy shooters of KGP, they came across a group of BMW engineers out testing the new BMW X6 who’d run into a bit of trouble in the 128-degree heat of a “desolate California road.”

As the preoccupied testers prepared to hook up a tow line to its X5 support vehicle, they accidentally left the prototype’s rear hatch open, revealing the true slope of the X6’s backlight thanks to a timely sequence of drive-by shots. It is now completely clear exactly how much of the rear camouflage is simply a hard plastic shell. That is to say–most of it. This detail is particularly interesting on the X6, because BMW is applying an aggressive application of the four-door-coupe concept first seen on the Mercedes CLS, to the SUV genre. There have been a number of performance-minded SUVs on offer, but the X6 is taking a unique styling approach which appears to be the most form-over-function SUV design effort seen to date. The roof line begins arching downward after the B-pillar and continues plunging right to the X6’s rising waistline. Second-row headroom and rear cargo volume are both severely compromised as a result.” As you can see from the photos, the car is still heavily masked and we can’t see all the details yet but the spy shots are getting better and better each time and more details are revealed. I’m not able to form an opinion on either I will love this design or not, but this is definitely an interesting approach by BMW.

Do you think this model was needed in the BMW family?