BMW X1 xDrive23i

SECOND REPORT It's thumbs up to life with firm's smallest SUV

- Steve Sutcliffe

THE things I really like about our third-generation long-term BMW xDrive23i M Sport X₁ are, in no particular order: the way it looks, the combination of comfort and support on offer from its excellent sports seats, the impressive quality and fine basic design of its high-class interior, the admirable amount of space and practicality it has in its rear seats and boot, its complex-but-brilliant new central touchscreen control system and, for most of the time, the way it drives.

That's a pretty long list of positives, and there aren't too many negatives I've unearthed over the first 4,500 miles with which to ruin it, either, apart from the overly aggressive response of its brakes and the fact that the rev counter isn't always displayed (call me old fashioned, but I quite like a rev counter). In fundamental terms, the X1 is hard to fault, easy to like. As a result, I'm getting on with it much better than I expected to be, given that it's the entry-level point to BMW's range of Sports Utility Vehicles.

I also really enjoy driving it just for the sake of driving it, and before I actually got behind the wheel that's not something I thought I'd ever say about a BMW X1. No, it's not a car that would ever motivate me to get up at 4.30am purely to drive it across a great road, but it was never designed by BMW to be such a vehicle in the first place.