Opening up the BMW presentation, incoming Chairman of the Board Dr Norbert Reithofer gave us the not-entirely-unexpected good news that BMW Group is still doing very well, thank you – and that means no change in the expectations for 2006 of record retail sales and a record pre-tax profit of €4 billion.

He also reassured us, again without raising too many eyebrows, that the Group continues to be the world’s most successful premium manufacturer and intends to stay that way. And he reaffirmed that BMW’s key strategy for doing that is to launch innovative and attractive product – which you might again think is stating the obvious, but then you just go back a couple of lines and read €4 billion over again. Because BMW, by sticking with the basics of making very good BMWs for people who love typical BMWs, are still way ahead of the game.

So the Paris line-up of a world debut for the 3-Series Coupe, and first showings for the M6 Convertible and updated X3, may have felt slightly low key after some of the bigger headline grabbers, but you just know they’re going to work.

The 3 Series Coupe extends the range alongside the saloon and Touring, and it includes a fantastic new engine in the form of the 306bhp twin-turbo in-line six in the range-topping 335i that was first showed in Geneva in March but which now finds its first home on the road.

BMW’s xDrive intelligent all-wheel drive system is available for the first time ever on the 3 Coupe (as well as the saloon and Touring), and is at the heart of the revised X3, providing instantly variable power distribution between front and rear axles under electronic control. It also interacts with the DSC dynamic stability control to maximise traction and minimise understeer or oversteer on slippery surfaces.

But if the BMW launches here are relatively low key in the great scheme of things, their statement of future direction is enlightening; and it is right on message with the undercurrent of the show – keeping the driver-focussed performance that BMW stands for but doing it with continuously improving efficiency and ecological conscience.

So all the new engines are powerful but acceptably frugal, and as well as fitting the old BMW line ‘Sheer Driving Pleasure’, they also now follow a new philosophy, ‘Efficient Dynamics’. And it works.