It’s not unusual to face some existential questions as you turn 50. The milestone might make you look back to see and honor where you came from. It might make you look forward to wonder what comes next. You might find yourself facing a vastly changed world that requires you to evolve. And you absolutely want to show off what you can do after half a century of perfecting some skills and crafts.
That’s all true for BMW’s M division.
M will turn 50 in 2022. It’s looking back. Looking forward. Pondering what’s next. And it’s very good at what it does.
Looking Back
M, for the uninitiated, isn’t just James Bond’s bureaucratic boss. Since 1972, it’s also been a special division of BMW devoted to building higher-performance versions of the brand’s already-performance-centered cars. It grew out of BMW’s racing division, and for half a century it has offered race-bred versions of many BMW vehicles for a considerable premium.
It will mark its 50th birthday by bringing back an old badge. 2022 M models will wear a logo BMW used in the 1970s. It uses the traditional blue and white roundel (a stylized impression of a plane’s propeller, reflecting BMW’s aviation roots), surrounded by partial arcs in violet, blue, and red.
Looking Forward
The retro badge is just the first change to mark M’s birthday. BMW says fans can look forward to “a year full of product highlights and major appearances by the performance brand.”
Like much of the automotive industry, BMW is pushing into electric cars. It retired its funky little i3 last year and replaced it with electric vehicles (EVs) more focused on keeping with the company’s reputation for sporty sedans and SUVs. The i4 is essentially an electric 3 Series. The iX, meanwhile, is a quick 3-row SUV sold as much for its sustainable construction as for its performance.
Now, M says, we can expect “the first electrified high-performance model” in BMW history next year.
Showing Off Its Skill with Gasoline
But the M division won’t go electric without showing off everything it has learned in 50 years of building gas-powered, street-legal race cars at least one more time.
The brand used a Miami art exhibit to show off a concept car that it says “looks ahead to the most powerful BMW M car ever to go into series production, which is set to begin at the end of next year.” The XM isn’t an enhanced version of a vehicle BMW already builds. It’s just the second vehicle the M division has ever built on its own.
It’s a boxy, muscular-looking SUV with huge wheel arches and the largest version of BMW’s twin-kidney grille ever seen. The roofline works its way down front-to-back, not in a gentle arch like the X6, but as a straight line.
BMW hasn’t given many mechanical details but says the XM pairs a V8 engine with “a high-performance electric motor” to push out 740 horsepower. It’s a plug-in hybrid system, able to drive about 30 miles on electric power alone.
Inside, the driver’s position is recognizably an evolution of M’s usual design language. Tobacco-brown leather seats and trim made from carbon fiber interwoven with copper thread create a feel at once vintage and modern.
But the rear seats get a completely different motif. Velvet upholstery and deep-pile carpeting create a look BMW calls “the M lounge.”
The XM is a design study, but BMW says it previews a production car we’ll see in 2022 as part of the M division’s year-long birthday celebration.
