Bye-Bye 2009: Worst New Car of the Year

Story and photo by John LeBlanc Of the more than 100 new vehicles I drove this year, I have to admit none could outdo last year's Dodge Nitro for outright ineptness. But then, perhaps thinking that it was concerned about a repeat award, Chrysler didn't make one of its four-cylinder Sebring sedan's available for me to try out. No worries. There was still one car I tested in 2009 that stood out for all the wrong reasons. If not the "Worst New Car of the Year," then BMW's new X6 M gets the nod as "The Most Irrelevant New Car of the Year." Now, I'm on record as saying that despite its built-in idiocy (according to its maker, it's a four-seat Sports Activity Coupé), the cooking $65,600 X6 xDrive35i is one of the best-handling vehicles out there–for an SUV! To what end I'm still not quite sure,  BMW decided to crank up the X6's lack of pragmatism to 11 by making it one of the first (the other is the X5 M) BMW SUVs to wear the celebrated M badge. You know, from the German automaker's in-house performance brand that brought us legendary driving machines like the M3 and M5? For 23 per cent more than a 400 hp $80,900 X6 xDrive50i, you get 11 per cent more torque in the M version, and some other M trinkets and gee-gaws. All of which can't hide the fact the X6 is still a tall, über-heavy vehicle that will never, ever lap a racetrack in competition, as BMW's PR people had us do at Road Atlanta. Fun? In a perverse way ( see the video below), yes. But relevant? Er, not so much.

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