A SPORT VEHICLE WITH UTILITY; BMW's X5 loves the track, and owners love it.(Auto File)

BMW's X5 toughs it out in a field of worthy competitors, in which players such as the Mercedes-Benz ML500 and the Porsche Cayenne S vie for attention from a small but discriminating bevy of buyers. The redesigned-for-2007 BMW, however, manages to distance itself from the Mercedes and the Porsche by offering an optional third row.

Most of the owners we heard from opted for that extra seating and cited it as one reason for their choice of the X5 over other vehicles in consideration.

But it was not the only reason, as most found the vehicle's power delivery and overall driving experience compelling enough reasons to go with the BMW.

The X5's engine-and-transmission combo do make for a glorious swell of power on the road in just about any gear, the V8's 350 horses and 350 lb-ft of torque surpassing everything in its segment except the 385 hp and 369 lb-ft of torque from the Cayenne S. We find the X5's insistence on shifting when it deems necessary enormously frustrating, however. Even in sport mode, the X5 will not stay locked in gear; once you lift off the throttle the slightest bit, it shifts up.

On the freeway, the X5 displays a very firm, almost sports-car-like ride. We detected little freeway hop, yet the ride never approached floaty and never beat up the vehicle's occupants, either.

At the track, the X5 needed just 119 feet to come to a stop from 60 mph, only slightly behind the 116 feet required by the last Cayenne we tested, the Turbo model. Another vehicle offering three rows of seating, the Volvo XC90, needed a lot more distance, at 135 feet.

In straight-line tests, the X5 turns in consistent 0-to-60-mph times in the low-seven-second range, topping out at 7.06, with a best quarter-mile run of 15.36 seconds at 91.1 mph. A similarly equipped Jeep Grand Cherokee, by comparison, with its 330-hp, 375-lb-ft, 5.7-liter V8, turned in a 6.67-second time to 60 mph and a 15.1-second quarter-mile (powertrain configurations for the Porsche and the Volvo we tested don't match up with the BMW, making a fair comparison impossible).