BMW X5 has enough torque to tow two Clydesdales at the gallop

YES, that is a BMW X5 xDrive40d M Sport, exactly like the one we test drove the other week. No, that’s not Leith harbour or Bo’ness foreshore or somewhere equally exotic. We just cheated a bit with the picture.

When “our” X5 arrived at Scotsman Towers, it looked a little forlorn for a car costing the best part of £60,000, options included. A low-flying stone on the M6 had gouged a crater out of its windscreen and, worse still, instead of having its arches filled with meaty 20-inch M Sport alloys and fat rubber, it rode on piddly 18-inchers and skinny winter tyres, giving it all the elegance of an elephant on a highchair.

So, to spare its blushes, we left the camera in the bag and focused on the rest of it, and it’s quite an offering. The xDrive40d has pretty much the same engine as the 640d over there on the left – a three-litre, six-cylinder, twin-turbo diesel that develops a tad over 300bhp (good for going fast) and 440 lb/ft of torque (good for going fast while towing two Clydesdales to a ploughing match). Combined mpg is said to be 37.7, but we couldn’t eke more than 30 miles to the gallon.

Despite, or perhaps because of, its pram wheels, the X5’s ride and road-holding were first class for a car of this size and height. Leather upholstery is now standard across the X5 range and, although our test car’s pale beige hide seemed odd for a car that’s bound to find itself at a muddy gymkhana from time to time, mank is dismissable with the swish of a wipe. Shame that can’t be said for gouges in the glass, so back it goes to BMW for some TLC.