A wide wheel track front and back, short
overhangs and a palpably stiff body are good fundamentals for both handling and
ride, though BMW has chosen the one over the other. Working with a carefully
engineered front-strut suspension, the electrically assisted steering is a
nicely accurate set-up with good road feel, but it isn’t perfect because it’s
slightly tainted by torque steer. Stiff anti-roll bars and the four-link back
suspension mop away much of the roll and understeer you’d expect from such a
tall car. And, sure enough, it’ll controllably edge the tail out if you lift
off at the limit. That’ll be a worthwhile characteristic when they do the hot
versions of the next 1-Series hatch, but right now it’s a bit pointless.
Of far more relevance in a people-carrier
is a ride that’s definitely on the hard side. The roll stiffness that’s been
dialed in to sharpen up the cornering also has the effect, in a tall car, of
rocking everyone’s heads from side to side on a lumpen road, even in a straight
line.
Big-screen
option taken from big BMWs
Sitting in the driver’s seat, a strange mix
of MPV and BMW genetic material presents itself. As in any MPV, the windscreen
is distant, its pillars impinge on your view and you’re sat far enough off the
floor that your legs dangle onto the pedals. But the instruments look the same
as in any BMW, and the iDrive is standard operating procedure. There’s a
head-up display option, but instead of reflecting in the windscreen as with
other BMWs, a transparent flap hinges up from the instrument binnacle – a
budget but effective solution pioneered by Peugeot and since used by BMW in the
new Mini.
The Active Tourer can be had trimmed out in
wood and leather like a big BMW. Alternatively, as with the test car, it can be
trimmed in fabrics that make the cabin look like a suburban garden pergola full
of stripy deckchairs. That’s another indication that this machine is pitched to
a family audience. Talking of families, within a year there will be a longer
seven-seat version.
Rear
legroom is generous, although the roofline could prove constricting
And that in turn brings us to the question
that fired up a scorched-earth flame war when we tested this car on
TopGear.com. A lot of people seem profoundly disturbed by the idea of BMW
making people-carriers, full stop. In some ways, it’s a reissue of the squeals
of indignation that greeted the first X5.
One-and-a-half decades on from that, and
everyone but the most bulging-eyed purists are prepared to accept that BMW has
managed to make SUVs without fatally diluting the image of the brand that also
makes the M3. By the same token, the Mercedes Vito van hasn’t hampered the
sales or image of the Mercedes SLS AMG, or at least not to any extent I’ve
noticed.
There's
a 468 litre boot at the rear and a practical 40:20:40 split rear bench
I think the bigger problem for the Active
Tourer is timing. When BMW launched the X5, it was a prescient move because
crossover SUVs were about to go mainstream. Whereas the five-seat MPV market is
in reverse. For example, in the UK, Ford’s five-seat C-Max has been
emphatically overhauled by the Kuga (7,000 to 11,500 in the first half of 2014,
fact fans). Even Vauxhall, which used to do nicely with the Zafira and Meriva,
is saying the next versions of those two will ditch their one-box vanette look
and instead get a dose of crossover fancy dress. And BMW is entirely cognisant
of the trend, so is busily working on next generations of the X1 and Mini
Countryman. They’ll both shift onto the same architecture as the Active Tourer.
The
BMW 218d Sport Active Tourer is powered by a four-cylinder engine
One last thing. You might remember when BMW
wheeled out cars such as the 2 coupe and the 4-Series, they told us that the
even Series numbers were for sporty body styles, and the odd numbers for the
more practical. Which means this car should surely have been the 1-Series
Active Tourer. Circumstantial evidence, then, that at the last minute they gave
it a higher number to gloss it up. That sounds like a lack of confidence. So if
you don’t like the idea of the Active Tourer, be reassured that you probably
won’t see one very often.
