Road Test: BMW X5 xDrive30d M Sport 5dr Auto

The new, third-generation X5 is all about evolution not revolution. And it's not hard to see why. The car that invented the Sports Activity Vehicle niche back in 1999 has been a strong seller ever since its launch - the second-gen model even posting a small sales increase this year despite its imminent replacement.

An automotive outlier when it launched - attacking the SUV segment from the road-biased side instead of from the traditional off-road arena - the US-built X5 is now the centrepiece of the X Series. A range that now accounts for a third of all BMW sales. So it has to be a no-excuses, great car from the off. And the good news is that it is, so you can breathe out now. But there are a couple of reservations, which we'll get to in a minute.

Let's start with the new stuff, which is pretty much everything. It might look similar to the last one, but this X5 is a clean-sheet reworking of the car. It's grown by over 30cm in length and 5cm in width, but the height has remained almost the same. That might not sound much, but within those dimensions, the design of the X5 has become less rakish and quite a bit more trad SUV.

The grille is more upright, and the bonnet looks shorter relative to the passenger cabin, which makes it appear heavier even though it weighs around 85kg less than the last car. That's despite a crayon box-worth of new side creases and lines designed to give it what BMW calls "an elegantly stretched silhouette". Stretched? Yes. Elegant? An SUV? Please...

There's also now all manner of aerodynamic flicks around the car, called variously Air Curtains, Air Breathers and the rear window's Aero Blades - 3D mouldings to the rear brake lights that smooth rear air flow - which, together with the new design, make the new X5 look almost indistinguishable from the X3... from the rear at least.

From the side, it's easier to tell the two apart, and from the front it's easy, as the new X5 has a six-eye front signature. The two sets of menacing twin headlamps plus the fog lamps give it a distinctive and aggressive appearance that will announce your arrival in the Waitrose car park better than a fanfare of ceremonial trumpets.

So, visually, instead of treading a new path for the X Series, the third-gen X5 has more fallen into line with its smaller brethren. Inside, however, it sets a new standard. If you want to see how a 21st-century SUV interior should look and work, look no further than this. The new Range Rover's is still great, but bits of it, notably the navigation, don't work perfectly. No such problems in the X5.

The quality of everything you see or touch is fabulous. The full-colour head-up display is crisp and clear, the 20cm centre screen is super-high-def, the navigation system thinks far enough ahead to give you accurate directions in plenty of time, the voice prompts sound like a BBC newsreader, the gearlever and flappy paddles have pleasingly well-oiled actions... the list goes on. You just feel like you are sitting in a space designed by people who really - really - care about the tiny details. Because they do, obsessively. They should get out more, but I'm kind of glad they don't.

There's also more of the interior to use now. Thanks to that longer length and some modest repackaging, there's more rear loadspace. Good news for luggage and dogs - even better for kids in the optional third-row seats. The rest isn't bad for adults, either. The rear seat is now a 40:20:40 split design to add flexibility, and the tailgate is still a two-piece affair. The top half is electrically assisted (if you must); the bottom is manual only.

Getting into the mechanical bits, there is a seemingly endless array of systems and subsystem options to choose from. These will be simplified into packages, but some of the things to watch out for include three levels of adaptive suspension packages: Comfort, which adds air rear suspension and active damping; Dynamic, which substitutes the rear air for overall active roll control; and Professional, which combines both. An M Sport package has tighter suspension.

At launch, three engines will be available: a 258bhp, 415lb ft 3.0-litre turbodiesel inline six; a 450bhp, 480lb ft 5.0-litre petrol V8 and the mountain-moving 381bhp, 546lb ft triple-turbo diesel inline six. Each drives all four wheels through the latest eight-speed ZF 'box. In December, a two-wheel-drive chassis and a 2.0-litre turbodiesel 4cyl engine will be added to the line-up, along with a couple more diesel and petrol options.

We only got to drive the 3.0-litre turbodiesel (xDrive 30d) and the V8 petrol (known in BMWspeak as xDrive 5.0i) at the launch, but it was enough to telegraph the X5 has no intention of giving up its place in the market to pretenders from Porsche, VW or Range Rover any time soon.

Both cars now offer church levels of quiet and calm, and can be specced with enough function or luxury to please the broad spectrum of luxury SUV buyers. Meanwhile, its road manners are little short of exemplary. Neutral, predictable and composed at all times, it's just as happy being thrown through a series of curves on a wet road as it is nuzzling through traffic.

The 3.0-litre diesel definitely suits the car better than the petrol engine, having better instant off-idle throttle response - so you can get out of junctions easily - and enough poke to never feel like you are gasping for more. Having said that, the monster M50d sounds like it could be persuasive, so we reserve judgement until we've had a drive in that, too. But don't let that stop you from jumping in now to join the X5 evolution.