As Mick Jagger will tell you, it’s not always possible to get what you want. It’s for this reason that I’m starting this confessional on the BMW 5 Series Gran Turismo (GT) by paying homage to the North American Honda Crosstour, née Accord Crosstour – a car that’s off-limits to UK buyers.
Both cars arrived in the fall – sorry, autumn – of 2009, just as the crossover craze was gathering momentum. As the name suggests, the Crosstour was based on the Accord sedan – sorry, saloon – and designed to bridge the gap between the four-door Accord (which the Americans could buy) and the Tourer (which the Americans couldn’t). Honda called it a ‘Crossover Utility Vehicle’ (CUV), but most reviewers and social media goers labelled it ‘ugly’. Car and Driver said: ‘The styling is bulbous and frumpy and makes the Crosstour look like a supersized Insight hybrid on stilts.’ The Truth About Cars (TTAC) stopped short of calling it ugly but noted that ‘the designers gave up when they got to the rump’. Michael Martineck of TTACwrote one of the most balanced reviews of the car and I share his opinion about the Americans being cruelly denied access to the prettier and more spacious station wagon – sorry, estate.
If you’ve waded through my previous guilty pleasures, you’ll know that I like an oddball. Which means the idea of a five-door Accord with slightly raised suspension, improved practicality, a 3.5-litre V6 engine (a 2.4-litre four-pot came later) and available four-wheel drive is an appealing prospect, even if an Accord Tourer makes more sense and is something I can buy without troubling a US shipping company. The Crosstour even had a removable, water-resistant underfloor utility box in the trunk – sorry, boot – long before today’s motoring journos worked themselves into a lather about the Ford Puma’s ‘Megabox’.
Even the Crosstour’s most ardent critics admitted that it was nice to drive. Car and Driver said, ‘it is not completely sensory depriving like most crossovers’, while my fellow member of the Crosstour Appreciation Club Kingdom (CACK), Michael Martineck, said it was ‘the most fun you can have in an Accord’. Having spent a day on the roads of Exmoor in an Accord Type-R, I’m going to politely disagree with you, Michael.
Honda predicted sales of 40,000 Crosstours a year – a not entirely unreasonable forecast given the fact that the Accord was racking up annual sales of around 300,000. To put the figure in context, Honda was shifting enough Accords for the entire population of Bristol, while even in its best year, the Crosstour never made it beyond Portishead. Less Glory Box and more Sour Times for Honda’s quirky crossover-cum-wagon-cum-hatchback.
I’m unlikely to experience the pleasure of Honda’s CUV, but I’m encouraged to see that prices of BMW’s Crosstour have dropped below £5000. Hardly chump change, but it’s worth remembering that the 5 Series GT was based on the 7 Series saloon, which means you get limo-like levels of rear legroom, a properly classy interior and an available 4.4-litre V8. It even featured a two-piece tailgate, which made the 5er GT a sort of crossover-cum-wagon-cum-hatchback-cum-saloon. Come again?
It wasn’t perfect: the boot was too small for a car longer than a contemporary Land Rover Discovery, the ride quality suffered on larger wheels and the styling was as divisive now as it was then. Or maybe not, because to my eyes the 5 Series GT looks more attractive than BMW’s current range of SUVs. It’s the 7 Series hatchback of your dreams. Or nightmares, depending on your point of view. In the case of both the Crosstour and 5 Series GT, the equivalent estate version is a more logical choice, but there isn’t a prescription strong enough to cure the irrational thoughts in my head. What time does the Chelsea drugstore close this evening?
This article first appeared in issue 21 of Classic.Retro.Modern. magazine.