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I'll be a bit long winded... Where I live, I get a lot of snow. Since I was not used to driving in the snow when I first came here, I was advised to look for a 4 wheel drive car. I was also on a budget and at that time there were few 4WD cars - mostly only SUVs. I ended up getting a Ford Escape and it served me well. But I always missed the feeling of European cars, which I had driven for most of my life before then (mostly, Fiat and Lancia, but also Maserati).
I became accustomed to an SUV small enough to be as agile as a car. I had tried some others (Lexus, Ford, Chevy) but I was not satisfied. Then I tried an X6. It did not handle like a car - not at all. But it had that sprint and response that I had been missing ever since I had switched to Ford. I liked it a lot, but I could not relinquish the agility of the Escape for the bulk of the X6. How's that for a completely unbalanced comparison?
Then the time came when I had to replace my Escape and I realized that the new one felt much worse than the old one, despite what the advertisements and promotions wanted me to believe. And that's when I tried an X3. Not the new one, mind you - the previous model. I did not like the looks. The interior was as spartan or worse than my Escape. But the driving felt right. Really right - although not as exciting as the X6. I ended up getting an Edge to replace my Escape, which gave me a better interior and a much poorer ride than even the Escape. Then I waited.
The new X3 fits all my requirements: an excellent, lively, but comfortable ride; superb agility for an SUV; luxurious interior; superior technology; and good looks (at least for me). I would prefer still an X5 or an X6 for their engines, and their looks are very appealing to me - even more than the X3; but the X3 takes the cake for size, visibility and maneuverability.
So this is my entirely personal and possibly irrational rationale for ordering an X3.
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