Yahoo Autos 2024 BMW X2 Preview Drive: Testing the car that ran the Rebelle Rally
GLAMIS, Calif. – It’s not rare to see a BMW on the podium in a pavement motorsports event, but a second-place finish in the longest off-road navigational rally raid in North America? That’s just plain crazy.
BMW made the impossible possible at the Rebelle Rally last week when the 2024 BMW X2 M35i xDrive piloted by Rebecca Donaghe with navigation courtesy of Sedona Blinson took a second-place finish in the X-Cross category. The team dodged rocks and washes as they navigated without GPS over 1,300 miles using just a compass and a paper map, searching for checkpoints over seven days of competition. Team 205 braved camping in overnight temperatures as low as 14 degrees near Mammoth Lakes, Calif., and suffered through 110 degrees during the final few days in the Imperial Sand Dunes, the largest dune complex in North America located in Glamis, Calif.
BMW let me take a quick drive in the pre-production X2 at the end of the rally. It’s the requisite longer, lower and wider. The headlights are angrier, the kidney grille a bit bigger and more angular, the intakes slightly chunkier, and as this is the M35i, a beard of gloss-black trim surrounds them. The hatch is somewhat more sloped and the rear fascia has a bit more sheet metal, highlighted by twin exhaust pipes on either side and a slick black diffuser. In all it’s a handsome package.
Jumping behind the wheel of the X2 I immediately notice the supportive seats. The bolsters hug my rear and there is plenty of shoulder support as well. Reading the press release later I learn that BMW has dubbed the animal-free material, and I’m not kidding here, Veganza.
At any rate, the next feature to draw my attention is the large single piece of curved glass housing the infotainment system and digital gauge cluster. The X2 gets BMW’s new, Android-based iDrive 9 infotainment system. It seems pretty snappy, but I don’t get a ton of time to mess around with it, so we’ll have to wait for another time to see if BMW has corrected the many issues Autoblog has had with iDrive8. I definitely can’t tell you anything about the navigation system as it’s been disabled, per Rebelle Rally rules. This is a map and compass challenge, after all.
Other cool-looking interior bits include aluminum trim with cut-out cube-like details, Alcantara trimmed dash and door panels, and all the M badging you can shake a stick at.
