The upcoming 2023 BMW XM is the most powerful vehicle ever to wear a Motorspor badge. It is also the first dedicated modern BMW M model... and it’s a massive SUV that is essentially just the X7 with a sportier, more aggressive body.
When BMW showed the XM concept, it was pretty clear looking at certain details that the vehicle would be going into production pretty much unchanged, ready to polarize opinions at a corner pub near you. And now that we’ve had our first look at the production XM, it looks like we were right and there are hardly any changes to report on.
Granted, the vehicle photographed by Wilco Blok still has its front and rear fascias hidden, but we do get a very good look at everything else, including the interior. And we don’t really expect the front or rear light cluster design to change anyway, so up front you should expect the same two-tier design that not everybody is on-board with, while in the back it will get huge blade-style clusters in-line with the rest of the range.
This example also had its wheels hidden, so we can’t say anything about their design - they do look massive, though, and we think we can make out that they are 23 inches in size, surely staggered, with very wide 275-section tires up front.
The interior is mostly covered and what we can see is pretty typical BMW fare - it predictably gets the M steering wheel, M automatic transmission selector and red starter buttons, but we could have told you this without this new batch of photos. Basically, expect it to stay true to the concept, so it will feature a curved two-screen array running version 8 of its infotainment software and what we expect to be very aggressive sports seats.
This plug-in hybrid monster will be motivated by a twin-turbo V8 which together with electric motors is expected to produce around 750 horsepower and a mountain of torque, 1,000 Nm (737 pound-feet), sprinting to 100 km/h (62 mph) in under 4 seconds and topping out at around 284 km/h (177 mph).
