BMW PAS Concept is BMW 5 Series Gran Turismo

The much spied, talked about BMW PAS Concept had broken cover, and the Progressive Activity Sedan is now known as 5 Series Gran Turismo. Previewing strongly the upcoming 5 Series' design directions.

Speaking about controversial designs, BMW had already got everyone used to being surprised once every few months since the E65 7 Series. Let's talk about controversial car terms then. Starting with the X6, BMW termed it as a Coupe SUV, which avoids the common nomenclature 'Sports' that can even be found on even certain mopeds; thus the very use of the word 'Coupe' then is to bring out the sports intent on the X6. However Coupe means 2 doors, and BMW somehow seems to find that it works well, especially the group photo session of the X6 amongst the likes of 1 Series Coupe, 3 Series Coupe, 6 Series and Z4 - Suggesting they're a family of coupes.

Now coming to this new 5 Series GT, again BMW brought the Gran Turismo name onto a 4 door hatchback, suggesting that this hatchback, is in fact within the likes of the Maserati GT, or Continental GT, where both are genuine grand tourers with 2 doors and 4 seats. Gotten use to it yet? We better be.



Let's talk about the design now, to cut everything short, it's an X6 with a much lower riding height. Of course with the usual BMW concave surfaces.



The front carries very strong hints of family looks with the recently unveiled 2010 7 Series, which both sports those oversize kidney grills (can we call them Lung Grills now?) and wraparound headlamps, design cues from the Concept CS.



Of course the party piece is this, a split folding rear hatch (oops, boot remember? It's a GT). By wondering how on earth could human beings evolved to a state where we open the same boot lid of our hatchbacks all the way up all this while, everyday, just to perhaps place our grocery shopping bags; BMW had stood up for all human beings in the world by engineering a bootlid that seems more advance than the whole of Zimbabwe, that it allows all human beings to 'You need not open the entire boot since your grocery bags are so small' thus solves our centennial 'headache'.



So is it a good car? We're pretty sure of course it will be yet another BMW creation that defies basic connections between bulk and agility, and all the as expected BMW qualities of interior build, quality construction etc. However, like the X6, we must ask - WHY?

One thing we can't argue, is the sheer presence of this, and of course the X6 as well. Anyone saw one on the roads? Even amongst a sea of Bentley, Porsche; we somehow understand what Bangle left behind is a design language that does not only seems impressive on paper, but in real world, there's quite nothing like them. Truly, being beautiful or ugly is always better than being bland, and bland is a word that will never be used upon a BMW, even if they're dead ugly.