BMW X3 Rental in Los Angeles

This car wears the dark trim package — black grille surround, black window frames, black arches — and in black paint all of it disappears into the body. What is left is one uninterrupted shape, which is the most expensive-looking version of a car that is otherwise deliberately sober.

This is a warm grey rather than a cold one — closer to a light bronze in low sun than to silver — and it is set off by a bright chrome grille surround instead of the black one the darker cars wear. That combination is unusual on an X3 and it is the reason this car does not read as a fleet vehicle.

Deep blue is the colour BMW has used on the cars it wants taken seriously since long before it built an SUV, and it is the one shade that makes an X3 look like a BMW rather than like a category. Against the bright wheels it has depth that a flat colour on this shape simply does not.

This car pairs white paint with the blacked-out grille, mirrors and wheels, and the contrast is the whole reason to pick it. On a dark X3 those parts vanish; on this one they draw the car's outline for you, and a mid-size SUV that could look anonymous instead looks deliberate.

Silver with the chrome grille surround is the X3 in its plainest form, and there is a real case for it. This is a car whose merit is that it does everything without asking anything of you, and the finish that matches that is the one nobody has to think about.