Originally Posted by Beemer B773ER

Well, it may not have been a clear niche, but BMW's "SAV" tag created a new trend of sports-orientated 4WDs. As you can see now, the market is flooded with these 4WD's which have more on-road prowess than off-road.
Same thing with the CLS.. he 4-door coupe thing was simply a marketing thing to differentiate the car from its competitors (as well as the E-class). Nothing new about a car which looks coupe-ish but has 4 doors. Just they re-invented it, and much like the X5, we're now seeing an increasing number of cars based on the 4-door coupe/GT theme.

The F5 to me simply looks like it's going to be a 5er Touring, but with a very sloping rear (ala X6) and maybe a tad higher shoulder line. But I guess if BMW sees a viable market for it, then why not... after all, in the end it's all about sales, market share and profitability.