This is by far the hottest market segment right now. Crowded with more than 20 vehicles, midsize SUVs vary in size and type but nearly all seat five adults and offer V6 or V8 engines. Our Best Buy is the car-based Lexus RX 300. Though it lacks a low range in 4WD mode, it's the most carlike to drive and offers all of the versatility of a truck-based model.

Our Recommended choices are all traditional SUVs: the Dodge Durango, which offers optional third-row seating; the best-selling Ford Explorer clone Mercury Mountaineer; the Teutonic Mercedes-Benz M-Class; the utilitarian Nissan Xterra; and the refined but expensive Toyota 4Runner.

X5 added nearly 27,000 sales to BMW's U.S. total in calendar 2000. It's also selling well in Europe. With that, BMW is spending $300 million to expand the Spartanburg, South Carolina plant that builds X5s as well as its Z-Series sports cars.

Competition is heating up in the luxury SUV field, and that explains the new 4.6is. Developed by BMW's M performance division, it's designed to challenge Mercedes' ML55 AMG and the forthcoming Porsche Cayenne for title as the world's fastest SUV, reportedly able to do 0-60 mph in about 6.3 sec. Meantime, BMW has reportedly shelved plans for a "long tail" X5 to answer pleas for more cargo space. Instead, the company will issue a new-design SUV called X7 that will be the basis for the next-generation X5. Currently slated to bow in the first half of 2004, X7 is said to be more luxury station wagon than true SUV: much lower and sleeker than today's X5s, but also longer and thus roomier inside--enough for standard 7-place seating, hence the name. For reasons of performance, fuel economy and overall roadability, BMW is working to keep X7 as light as possible, an effort that should also benefit the offspring X5s. X7 engines are tipped to be a 300-hp V8 and, sometime later on, a 6.0-liter V12 with about 450 hp; both unit appear this fall in BMW's redesigned 2002 7-Series flagship sedans. X7 may also exchange steel springs for the self-levelling air-spring suspension that BMW developed for the new 2003 Range Rover before selling Land Rover to Ford last year.

European sources say X5s won't adopt the basic X7 design until early 2006. That's a long way off, but gives credence to recent rumors that the current models will get a heavy facelift for 2003 or '04. At minimum, the new look should include a wider, squarer "twin kidney" grille and smaller but more powerful headlamps.