BMW South Africa continues to find ways to attract more people to showrooms and buy an X3. The locally assembled luxury crossover recently received a rear-wheel drive Pure Edition, and now we learn about another special variant. The Rugged Edition is not a limited model, as the name suggests, but an optional package.
It’s exclusive to the X3 20d xDrive and is expected to perform better off-road thanks to its smaller wheels. It replaces the standard 19-inch alloy wheels with an 18-inch set with Frozen Midnight paint and thick 225/60 R18 General Grabber tires. While adaptive suspension is normally an option on the “G45,” it is standard on the Rugged Edition.
BMW South Africa sweetens the offer with a lot of extras. For example, the X3 Rugged Edition has a black roof rack that holds a 320-liter roof box. Of course with the BMW logo. All-weather floor mats and a transparent protective film are also included. More importantly, the diesel crossover has heated front and rear seats. An electronically releasable trailer hitch up to 2,500 kilograms is also part of the package.
The Rugged package costs R102,000, or almost $6,000 at current exchange rates. This is in addition to the X3 20d xDrive’s base price in South Africa of R1,136,417.20 (nearly $66,000).
This fourth-generation X3 is no stranger to off-road upgrades. Just a few months after its introduction last year, the hot M50 received a customized version for the Rebelle Rally. The M Performance X3 received custom skid plates, Falken Wildpeak A/T Trail tires and other extras. After covering around 2,500 kilometers over seven days, the specialized X3 M50 secured a podium finish with Rebecca Donaghe as driver and Syndiely Wade as navigator.
Looking to the future, BMW could expand the “rugged” theme even further with its own model. We’ve heard about a potential “G74” coming later this decade as a three-row adventure SUV with hybrid and electric powertrains. It would be a CLAR-based vehicle with ties to the next-generation X7 (“G67”), meaning it would retain unibody construction rather than switching to a body-on-frame configuration. It’s unlikely to be as tough as a Mercedes G-Class, but it would offer better off-road capability than any BMW X model before it.
