This post was originally published on Autocar
Does only the second-ever bespoke M car leave us excited about the future, or longing for the past?
The BMW XM is the 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, giving 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, with up to 738bhp in the full fat XM Label Red. The XM, then, outshines even the Aston Martin DBX 707 – an SUV so monstrously over-endowed that they put the figure in its name.