Mercedes-Benz has long had a huge weak spot in its model line-up - it didn’t have any SUVs that weren't big and expensive. In the last few years, however, the company has scrambled to fix that with a full range of incredibly impressive SUVs that have been selling up a storm, both globally and locally.

With Mercedes leaping from third to the lead of the local luxury segment, BMW clearly decided to remind us all that they too sell an excellent range of SUVs, hence a two-day drive up north, with a bit of light off-roading thrown in, just to show us what they can do. And remind us that the brand with the three-pointed star on the nose wasn’t the only one to do some damn good luxury SUVs across all sizes...

The off-roading section took place at the Woodhill 4WD park, north-west of Auckland, but don’t get excited; this wasn’t going to be the usual Woodhill-based thrash through deep mud, across axle-twisting ruts and over impossible-looking hills that 4WD testers usually do in Jeeps, Land Rovers and the like.

No, these were road-biased SUVs after all, albeit ones with surprising capabilities off the road.

But common sense (and BMW’s desire to NOT have to replace lots of low-hanging plastic bits) would suggest that the lack of serious ground clearance and the presence of many sporty body extensions means that the things never see much more than what would be described as “mild” off-road conditions in the hands of their owners. So that is what we would be doing.

To be fair, however, what we did was probably much, much more than any owner would ever do, whether it be the small, relatively affordable X1 or the mighty (and mighty pricey) X5 M. Probably particularly the X5 M.

To read the full story in the June 2016 issue of NZ4WD go to Zinio.com (May 23) or purchase your own hard copy at the Adrenalin store.