The Gran Tourer is an oddity in the BMW range: a seven-seater four and a half metres long. The third row suits children or short journeys, but it is there, and it was the only route to seven seats from BMW below an X5. Built from 2015 to 2023, with no successor.
Against the F45 Active Tourer the wheelbase grew by eleven centimetres and the length by a good twenty. The roof is taller and differently drawn, the rear doors larger, and the rear quarters and tail belong to it alone. To the A-pillar the two are the same car and past it they are not — the commonest mix-up on this model, because from the front they are hard to tell apart.
For rear and boot parts the seating configuration is what matters. The F46 was built as a five- and a seven-seater, and the side panels, load floor and underfloor structure differ accordingly. Two F46s are not automatically the same car at the back.
The 2018 facelift hit both models together, bringing new headlights and rear lights on an unchanged body. Door cards, steering columns and front wings are the core of what reaches us from one.
