Hot on the heels of the new 1-Series that looks like an old Kia, here’s the new X3, that’s being compared to everything from an angry beaver to a Swedish PC housing. The single image that has leaked online via several channels, including @wilkoblok on Instagram, appears to be a screen grab from a promotional video of the new combustion-powered X3 due later this year. The ICE X3 is a heavily revised version of the current SUV and so rides on the same CLAR platform, and will be joined in 2025 by an electric iX3 that’s the first BMW to use the brand’s Neue Klasse architecture.
The iX3 was previewed by the Vision Neue
Klasse X SUV concept earlier this year, but this new combustion X3 features a
very different face that seems to borrow more from the controversial XM
flagship than the various Neue Klasse concepts. Like the XM, it features a pair
of large eight-sided kidney grilles set into a bluff, squared-off nose,
although the headlights are one-piece units rather than split into two parts as
on BMW’s most expensive cars. The shape of the grille and positioning relative
to the lights has got some web commenters likening it to an angry beaver, but
what seems to have really set keyboards alight is the pattern in the grille.
Combining a traditional vertical set of
grille bars overlaid with another set running diagonally up and outwards from
the license plate, the design has been likened to the pattern on the front of
PC case from Swedish case-builder, Fractal. Or you might think it looks like a
Wall Street banker dressed in a pinstripe suit crossing his arms in front of
him. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this grille pattern. The new 1-Series
revealed earlier this week also features the same design unless you go for the
top dog M140. But in the hatch’s case the unusual orientation of the grille
bars is less obvious because they’re black, rather than bright, as on this X3.
Compared with the departing X3, the new
one gets a wider track and flush door handles, but the engine lineup will be
very similar, being made up of 2.0-liter inline four and 3.0-liter inline
six-cylinder motors, though expect more choice and more range from the PHEV
variants, which should return to the U.S. market.
