On the road: ‘A hurricane couldn’t shift it’ – BMW X1 car review

It is so poky in its upper ranges that a lesser driver might have hit 104mph without noticing

My authority on the subject of high winds on British motorways isn't unchallengeable, but I can tell you one thing: how it feels to drive the BMW X1, amid leaves and twigs swirling like the start of The Wizard Of Oz, and wee Fiats and Corsas buffeting involuntarily between fast and slow, like a safety video about lane discipline. It feels good. I felt like a king. It is as solid as a rock, and so poky in its upper ranges that a lesser driver might have hit 104mph without noticing. A hurricane couldn't shift it, with its imposing proportions and quality heft. The sports 20d version - diesel, all-wheel drive, sporty in inception, but with a touch of executive ego-padding in the body roll (don't bump the executive! He is working on his spreadsheet!) - is the one everybody will want. It's got the best automatic gear changes (sharp, exciting, somewhat exhibitionist) I've come across for ages, maybe ever.

In-house, they think of it as an SUV, though it doesn't loom pointlessly above all the other cars and has no bull bars, so it's not for the person with a howling problem of the self, awaiting the apocalypse. Indeed, from the outside, it's not the nattiest Bimmer, possessing neither the frisky sportiness nor the all-weather machismo for which the marque is known. You don't start to see the point of it until you get in and notice the roominess - acres of leg and head space for everyone - and the buttery leather.