For the past year or so, Carfection has had a BMW X5 xDrive40d as their long-term crew/camera car. It’s been the car that brings their entire crew, all of their equipment and luggage to location where they shoot their car films. While it’s there, they usually use it as a camera car, with the tailgate open, a man hanging out with a camera and it’s usually driving pretty quickly around a racetrack, trying to keep up with the lead car. Then, once, they’re all done shooting for the day, everyone packs back up into the X5 and drive home.

That’s a lot of work for one car, yet the BMW X5 served them brilliantly in ever aspect of its life. Not only was it a useful camera car and crew car but it was able to keep up with the performance cars they were shooting. It was also comfortable and relaxing for the drive home, which makes a day’s work a lot easier. So it’s not hard to see why they folks from Carfection are a bit sad to see it go and I understand as I, too, fell for the charms of the X5 during my test of it. It’s a fantastically comfortable and lovely SUV.

But Alex also reckons that it makes a good city car. Typically, if you live in a big city with narrow streets, practically zero parking and monstrous traffic, you want something quite small. A MINI or a Golf would do perfect. So it’s unusual to hear that a two-ton SUV with seven-seat capability would be a good city car. But it is, according to Alex, because it’s so big and comfy as well as the fact the people tend to drive away from it.

In a small car, other motorists might be tempted to tailgate you or sort of bully you around in traffic. But the big hulking SUV would pose more problems for other motorists if they hit it than otherwise, making people sort of back off. Plus, it has fantastic cameras that allow the driver to see everything that’s going on outside the car and really help for parking. The surround-view top-down parking camera is a revelation. Plus, you sit quite high, get an expansive view of the road and ultimately feel calm and serene in the X5. So the stress of city traffic simply melts away.

Carfection is moving on to their next long-termer, so they’re saying goodbye to the X5. However, they’re going to miss it, as it was capable of doing everything they asked of it with ease while also providing perfect comfort and luxury. And it’s also a good city car. Who would have thought?