A fully camouflaged BMW X2 prototype was caught on video testing in M Performance trim, its quad exhaust tips giving away the M35 xDrive hiding beneath the black wrap. The footage, posted by mr.grey_4k on Instagram, reveals something far more telling than a warmed-over mid-cycle refresh. BMW is grafting its Neue Klasse design language onto a car that launched just two years ago.
The front fascia is completely new. Gone is the horizontal kidney grille that defined the current X2. In its place sits a vertical grille treatment that mirrors the iX3 and the upcoming next-generation X5/iX5.
BMW clearly wants visual cohesion across its SUV lineup, and the X2 is falling in line whether it needs to or not.
The rear tells a different story. The prototype still wears its distinctive spoiler, and BMW appears content to keep the existing taillight hardware, potentially tweaking only the inner graphics. When you’re spending money on a wholesale dashboard redesign and a new face, you save where you can.
That interior overhaul is where the real money goes. BMW plans to rip out the current dashboard and install the 17.9-inch central iDrive X screen found in every Neue Klasse model. Along with it comes Panoramic Vision, the projected display strip running along the base of the windshield.
Three fixed tiles on the left replace traditional gauges. Six customizable widgets sit to the right. It is a complete philosophical shift for a car that will still ride on the same platform it launched with.
This is becoming a pattern. BMW’s conventionally shaped X1 gets the same LCI treatment in 2027. But the electric iX1 reportedly skips the facelift entirely, jumping straight to a next-generation model built on rear-wheel drive architecture with cylindrical battery cells.
Whether the electric iX2 follows the same path remains unclear, though aligning both coupe-styled variants with their standard siblings would be the logical move.
The Sport Activity Coupe lineup itself is in flux. BMW killed the X4 last year, trimming the SAC family to just the X2 and X6. The X4 returns later this year exclusively as the electric iX4, making it the first BMW coupe-SUV without a combustion option.
The X6 enters its second generation the following year. BMW is clearly reshuffling which nameplates get gas engines, which go electric-only, and which straddle both worlds.
On the powertrain front, do not expect a horsepower bump for the M35 xDrive. Euro 7 emissions standards loom, and the European-spec car already makes 296 horsepower, 16 fewer than the U.S. version due to tighter CO2 targets. The turbocharged 2.0-liter B48 four-cylinder carries over regardless.
One small detail worth watching: BMW has been quietly dropping the “i” suffix from its gasoline model names. The M35i xDrive becomes simply the M35 xDrive. It is a minor branding shift, but it signals BMW’s intent to reserve the “i” designation exclusively for electric vehicles.
The camouflage is expected to come off sometime in 2027, with production reportedly starting roughly a year from now. By then, the X2 will look like a different car from the nose back to the B-pillar and feel like a different car from the driver’s seat. Whether bolting Neue Klasse aesthetics onto a pre-Neue Klasse platform creates harmony or tension is something BMW’s engineers are still sorting out on roads like the one in that spy video.
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