BMW X1 and X3 Development Continues

Don’t blink. Look again, think twice. Whatever. Your eyes aren’t fooling you. You really are looking at two different cars here, not one. Here we have the next BMW X3, due out in 2010, and the upcoming brand spanking new baby SUV, the BMW X1.

We’ve spied these two vehicles for a while now, several times each even. For the first time we saw the X1 in concept form at Paris this year and this confirmed our earlier reports that the X1 is more X3 than X6, meaning long back, more touring type vehicle than coupe SUV like the X6. Interestingly BMW has a tendency to reveal concept cars that resemble close to 90 percent what the actual production car will look like, so we pretty much know the form of X1 now. As per normal BMW tradition at least two new engines will debut with X1 and X3, the likeliest for the former being a four-cylinder petrol turbo motor.

It appears BMW is still putting its faith in the SUV regardless of recent sales charts that suggest the genre is feeling the worst pinch of a global economic downturn as far as the auto industry is concerned. But these Germans are going mini, as seen with X1 as well as MINI Crossover concept.