A 2027 BMW X5 M60, dressed in Vancouver Green and parked on a North Carolina street like it belonged there, was photographed before BMW wanted anyone to see it. Testing equipment still cluttered the cabin. The car was not supposed to be out in the open.
This is the second unplanned reveal in weeks. BMW itself accidentally showed an M60 badge on a Dravit Grey X5 rolling down the Spartanburg assembly line in a production video, confirming a name the company hadn’t officially acknowledged. Somebody forgot to edit. Now somebody forgot to park indoors.
The car wears quad exhaust tips, a detail that once separated real M cars from everything else in the BMW catalog. That distinction died quietly a few years ago when BMW started bolting four pipes onto M Performance models. The X5 M60 carries the look without carrying the M division’s full engineering commitment.
Vancouver Green is new for the X5, and the M Sport Pro package on this car matches what debuted on the X5 M60e plug-in hybrid. Blacked-out trim, yellow accent lights, aggressive light graphics. Inside, the steering wheel is an M Sport Pro unit with spokes at 4 and 8 o’clock rather than the traditional 3 and 9, plus M-colored stitching along the rim.
The passenger display screen, borrowed from the 7 Series, sits on the dash. BMW is no longer rationing its flagship tech by model line.
The real tension here is under the hood. BMW has confirmed the twin-turbo 4.4-liter S68 V8 survives into the new G65-generation X5, rather than being replaced by a downsized engine. In its current form, the S68 produces 523 horsepower and 553 pound-feet of torque.
Those are strong numbers until you look one row over on the order sheet. The X5 M60e, a plug-in hybrid built around a turbocharged inline-six and an electric motor, hits the market first with 603 horsepower and 590 pound-feet. The hybrid version of the X5 will outgun the V8 on every metric that matters to a showroom buyer.
For weeks, possibly months, the V8 car will sit in BMW’s own configurator looking slower and weaker than a six-cylinder hybrid wearing the same badge. BMW almost certainly bumps the S68’s output for this generation. It has to.
Selling a V8 that loses on paper to a plug-in hybrid sharing its own nameplate would be an awkward conversation for every dealer in the country. But BMW also needs headroom beneath whatever the full X5 M produces, which means the increase will be modest. Something north of 523, south of dramatic.
Nobody at BMW has published a number. The car is still hauling around test equipment inside the cabin. And yet it is already parked on a public street in broad daylight, minutes from the factory where it was built, wearing a color not yet on the configurator.
BMW’s V8 flagship SUV is running behind its own hybrid sibling, and the company cannot seem to keep it hidden long enough to control the story.
Share this Story