2011 BMW X1 xDrive28i

[رانيا 2]

My wife hates wagons. Loathes them with the kind of passion and fervor normally reserved for sexual predators and real estate agents. But despite this, she drives the prototypical wagon-on-stilts, a Honda CR-V.

That unbridled disgust for any low-riding hatchback is something I've been trying to figure out for the last seven years, but it's a problem nearly every European automaker peddling its wares in the States has been dealing with for decades. The solution, it seems, is to downsize the standard CUV into a more compact package, while still providing the elevated ride-height and commanding view that consumers in a post-SUV world crave.

For BMW, the answer is the X1, the Euro-only-for-now crossover that slots in where the X3 used to reside before it blew up to near-X5 proportions. And fitted with BMW's new turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder, which U.S. customers will sample for the first time in the Z4 sDrive28i roadster, it makes a compelling case for itself. So much so that BMW's Leipzig, Germany plant is tapped out, meaning importation into the U.S. isn't going to happen anytime soon.