Does our first proper taste of only the second-ever bespoke M car leave us excited about the brand’s future or longing for its past?
RICHARD LANE @_rlane_
TESTED 9.3.23, SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA, US ON SALE APRIL PRICE £148,060
One down, one to go. This is the year in which two blue-blooded brands dispense with tradition and launch their own SUVs. Controversial? Just a touch. That said, we’ve now driven Ferrari’s Purosangue and found it to be profoundly good – although the presence of an 8250rpm 6.5-litre V12 always helps. That leaves the BMW XM. This is M division’s first bespoke car since the mid-engined M1 of 1978 and one that M CEO Frank van Meel says offers the best of X and the best of M. Hence the name.
This is also M’s very first hybrid, and its plug-in powertrain will resurface in the next M5, possibly with even more power and torque. Even for this initial application, it gives a heady 644bhp and 590lb ft.
A low-slung 29.5kWh battery grants an electric-only range of 55 miles. It feeds a 148bhp electric motor integrated into the ZF-built eight-speed automatic gearbox. The rest of the output comes from M’s phenomenally strong ‘S68’ twin-turbocharged 4.4-litre V8 – an engine that will realise more of its potential when the 738bhp XM Label Red arrives. That will ensure M’s new baby outshines even the Aston Martin DBX 707 – an SUV so monstrously over-endowed that they put the figure in its name.
But yeah, all right. We can’t stall forever. The fact is that none of the above, fascinating as it is, will get tongues wagging (or, I suspect, orders flowing) anything like as effectively as how the £148k XM looks. Even in images, this beady-eyed SUV is pretty challenging to behold. But in the metal it’s brutal, almost shockingly unapologetic, which is exactly as M intended. I’m struggling to remember the last time a car maker went quite so far down this road. Tesla Cybertruck?
Size-wise, the XM sits between the X5 and X7, so the footprint is sensible. The shutlines are oyster-shell tight and the creases in the body panels are deliciously crisp. However, the bevelled-block proportions are thuggish and the details a total bastardisation of M’s customary strong suit of turning out cars that have a forceful, muscular elegance to them.
There are fussily stacked exhaust pipes, gold elements abound and the front-grille surround is LED-lit, just in case you missed it.
BMW expects the US and China to account for roughly half of all sales, and perhaps the XM looks passably diffident next to a Ford F-450 at the intersection lights. But for M’s traditional audience, it’s har
