Thoughts on the BMW XM

Under slightly different circumstances, you’d be presented just with the lyrics of The Doors’ The End here.

For several hours, the BMW XM had me defeated. What was I supposed to write about a car that appears to have been created with the stated intention of vindicating the most ardent, insular of anti-automobile activists? About an object whose aesthetics and spirit create an instand urge in me to completely disassociate myself from the modern automobile and all it stands for?

Better go with Jim Morrison, rather than repeating yourself ad nauseam and frustrating yourself and the readers in the process, I thought. But as in many other fields these days, the wiser man must not give in. Certainly not to this.

For the sake of sanity, I shall not discuss aesthetic in any detail here, however. A shape that looks like either some proposal for a Lamborghini Urus successor, drawn by a 13-year-old video game enthusiast, an untalented automotive design student’s thesis project or an in-bred variety of Pontiac Aztec that has steroids for breakfast isn’t deserving of either my time or yours.

What actually is interesting - fascinating even - is this BMW’s socio-cultural background: the circumstances that allowed this desecration of automotive beauty to ever see the light of day. How could a room full of adults, much less highly-paid, supposedly intelligent professionals, ever look at this and come to the conclusion that it’s a wonderful means of paying tribute to half a century of BMW’s Motorsport branch? That even faint traces of beauty would be detrimental to BMW’s reputation and sales performance? That a design legacy of more than half a century isn’t simply to be dismissed, but actively mutilated?

Supposedly, the BMW XM’s creators have a specific idea of today’s performance car customer as someone who detests the sleek athleticism and inherent efficiency of, say, a BMW M1 or i8. Either of those cars’ futuristic trimmings must seem laughably naive to anyone who ‘gets’ the XM. In keeping with this assessment, the future, as symbolised by this pinnacle model, demands a gargantuan, omnipotent, earthbound tank, rather than something wedge-shaped and hypothetically airborne. Today’s statement car design à la Milbertshofen hence isn’t about suggesting any playful escapism, but blunt hectoring - a brutish device for a desolate world: The all-new aspirational.

This bleak assessment of the Zeitgeist isn’t unique to BMW, of course. Tesla’s Cybertruck propagandised a similar spirit, but that car at least is in possession of the kind of stylistic consistency and charisma its messy Bavarian brother-in-arms can match in the eyes of its creators only. Goofy misanthropy - quite the innovation.

For some time already, BMW design has seemingly been operating within one mighty echo bunker that prevents the intrusion of even the faintest of exterior noise. When speaking to designers from competitors about the state of affairs in Northern Munich, the initial reaction almost universally is a shaking of the head in disbelief. No malice, no snideness, but gobsmacked disbelief. Occasionally, when college friends happen to be employed at the Forschungs- und Innovationszentrum, also pity. To those outside the fortified BMW bubble, the goings-on inside are simply perplexing.

Guessing by the noises emitted from inside the bubble, this perplexity is habitually mistaken for a lack of creative nous. Like a motorist driving against the traffic, shouting at the onslaught of cars coming his way, BMW’s design leadership appear to be convinced they know something about the fundamentals of proportions, stance and beauty that eludes practically everybody else. In hindsight, the failure of Jozef Kabaň, BMW’s short-term chief designer (who had been poached from Škoda), seems utterly inevitable. Dissenting voices might upset the echo bunker.

It would be very insightful to learn what the homes of Harald Krüger, Oliver Zipse, Stefan Quandt and Susanne Klatten look like. For sartorially at least, none of them would look at home behind the helm of the BMW XM - not even remotely. Yet some years ago, they were let inside the echo bunker and shown this most uncouth of designs. Obviously, none of them are failing automotive design students or teenagers experiencing issues coping with their testosterone levels. Yet they allegedly all liked what they saw. Or at least came to the conclusion that this shape was worth alienating traditional customers and throwing away the laboriously earned progressive credentials the i3 and i8 aesthetic had established. Given the enormity of the financial commitments these people’s decisions entail, this result appears in equal parts mystifying and fascinating.

The BMW XM will go down in history as the car that finally broke BMW. The Bangle years had tested the brand’s integrity to a point when the groaning of die-hard enthusiasts became almost deafening - but it ultimately remained intact, as those years indeed were about experimentation and evolvement. This time, any outside groaning is drowned out by the obliviously triumphant shouting inside the Munich echo bunker, as BMW’s heritage is thrashed in order to give way to unprecedented excessive mediocrity.

In addition to eradicating traditional automotive design values, the BMW XM, this most destructive automobile, symbolises self-deception of the highest order. Its creators must feel great pride.

Can you picture what will be, so limitless and free

Desperately in need of some stranger's hand

In a desperate land