What were we supposed...

What were we supposed to do? Grab shovels and dig our way through, searching for bus stops where we"d wait in sub-zero temperatures for public service vehicles with no seatbelts? Or would it have been more acceptable to pay a dollar a minute to ride around in filthy yellow cabs for a week? Alternatively, I could have opted for a simple two-wheel-drive car. But in such tricky conditions, I feared I"d end up down a ditch or in the path of an oncoming truck, so I opted for a 4x4.

While the newcomer has...

While the newcomer has still to be officially christened, it"s known inside BMW as the RFK - short for "raum funktionales konzept", or functional space concept. It will be the first MPV to wear the blue propeller badge and, as our images show, it uses a number of the company"s traditional styling cues. Note the "flame-sided" panels, and headlights in the mould of the smaller 1-Series.