The BMW XM Failed Because It Was A Poser, And BMW’s Risking The Same Mistake Again

The famous quote from the character of Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight says, “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” It’s a concept that’s been around for some time, with Friedrich Nietzsche having coined what’s believed to be the original: “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” Well, it seems the BMW XM has found itself in the position not where it’s a hero, but where it’s about to evolve into the car it sought to defeat, the Mercedes G-Class.

That’s according to a recent report, which cites that the XM in its current form will soon die, to be replaced a few years from now by a new generation that will be a highly capable off-roader just like the G-Class. It turns out that if you can’t beat ’em on the sales charts, you join ’em. So what went wrong for the XM, and why is BMW about to embark on such a drastic reimagining of its halo model?

The BMW XM Is Losing Out Because It Was A Poser

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I’ve been highly critical of the XM since the day we first saw it in concept form. My issue with it wasn’t that it was a luxury SUV or that it had a hybrid powertrain. My issue with it was that it was an M car, not just an M car, the M car. In the history of BMW’s hallowed M division, only two cars have been pure, ground-up M vehicles. The first was the M1, and the second, the XM. Maybe I’m a little biased by having driven an M1 – something that ranks to this day as one of the top 10 highlights of my automotive career – but you don’t wait decades to follow up on something that special, only to deliver a half-baked luxury SUV with styling by the Angry Birds design team.

BMW leaned hard into the M heritage playbook for the XM, with the double roundel on the rear windshield, and its unique outboard kick-ups harking back to the M1’s rear-end design. Such a throwback was heresy in my eyes, leveraging something remarkable in the past to sell something utterly unremarkable in the present. BMW also touted the XM as being “born on the track,” and at the BMW M Festival in 2022 at South Africa’s Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit, BMW M boss Frank van Meel reiterated this.

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Built To Park Outside Clubs Alongside Lambos And Gs

But at that same event, in a one-on-one interview, van Meel admitted to me that this wasn’t a real M car, but more of a poser; a car BMW created to fit in with the in-crowd of Lamborghini Uruses and Mercedes G-Classes.

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He referred to the ultra-luxury SUV segment as “the zeitgeist segment to enter into,” and admitted that BMW was effectively trying to keep up with the Joneses. “A lot of people who drive a Lamborghini Urus or Mercedes G-Class say, ‘I want to have something like that from BMW,’ and so for us, it was the logical choice,” he told me. It raised red flags for me back then, but in the years since, consumer demand has proven that simply following the trends dictated by others was not the right choice. XM sales have been horrific, and understandably so, as this poser of an SUV was neither an exemplary M car nor a great luxury SUV.

Not A Great M Car, Not A Great Luxury SUV

The X5 M was quicker, the Alpina XB7 more luxurious. The XM was an overpriced, underperforming design statement meant to take the world of TikTok superstars and celebrities by storm. It was as if it were designed by committee to appeal on paper to all the right buyers. But it failed. In 2024, BMW sold fewer XMs than it did Z4s on a global scale. That’s a failure in my eyes, and looking back at van Meel’s quote above, about how SUVs are effectively more important halos than sports cars, it’s a failure by the logic of why it was chosen to be M’s halo instead of a sports car.

The XM was meant to steal sales from G-Classes and Uruses and Bentaygas and Cullinans, and the US was meant to be its biggest market. But to date (or at least through the first half of this year), BMW’s only sold a total of 4,692 XMs in the US since it first went on sale in April 2023. In 2024, BMW sold just 7,813 XMs globally.

BMW created the car that the market said everyone wanted, and it simply didn’t live up to expectations. Maybe it’s because it lacked M car performance, wasn’t comfortable enough to justify its ultra-luxury position, or because it arrived too late in an overcrowded segment, or maybe it was a combination of the above. I suspect a small part of its lackluster reception is that the BMW M badge means more to people than BMW thought; you can’t just slap an M badge on something and expect it to sell if it doesn’t embody the spirit, or perceived spirit, of M.

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Can A Complete 180 Save The XM’s Future?

It’s clear the BMW XM hasn’t died a hero. It never redefined the ultra-luxury SUV, nor did it usher in a new era of performance or even social adoration for the M brand. So now, it’s going to become the villain – and by villain, I mean the very vehicle it swore to destroy (in the sales charts). Talk about mixing movie metaphors.

A report from Automotive News, citing industry insiders, claims a new vehicle, chassis code G74, is coming from BMW in 2029 that will directly target the G-Class as a competent luxury off-roader. It’s unlikely to wear the XM badge, but insiders suggest it will be an informal replacement for the XM and serve as the brand’s new halo SUV. Based on the Neue Klasse architecture, which will be shared with the next-gen X5, it will sit at the top of the BMW pyramid and become the brand’s first genuine SUV, with all previous high-riders being referred to as Sports Activity Vehicles, or SAVs. The XM, meanwhile, will meet its demise in 2028, with no second generation planned.

CarBuzz/Valnet – generated with AI assistance

Only If BMW Gives the G74 One Important Thing

So will the complete 180 in methodology work? It’s unlikely that this will be called the XM, or even officially an M car. It’ll likely get M variants – just like every other BMW that gets built – but it’ll probably be the X9 or something else entirely. In focusing on the off-road-capable ultra-luxury domain, BMW might have a better chance of success, though. That segment is significantly smaller than the ultra-luxury crossover one, and with only the G-Class, Defender Octa, and Range Rover boasting credible off-road chops, it gives the BMW a statistically stronger chance.

CarBuzz/Valnet – generated with AI assistance

But BMW will need to engineer, and probably over-engineer, this new off-roader. If the XM promised M performance and didn’t deliver, this new SUV will need to be capable of vastly more than any owner will ever think to put it through. Almost no one actually uses the full potential of a G-Class or a Range Rover, but you just know that every influencer with a G on 23s is still telling people about its multiple diff locks and how it was built for military duty. In this world, being able to brag about a car, even if you can’t access that performance, is worth everything. It’s why Nürburgring lap times are still such a big deal. The XM never had any of that clout, no big claims for owners to brag about, simply a smattering of M badges and illumination wherever you looked.

The XM was never bragworthy for anything other than being the M SUV, but if BMW can deliver something worth bragging about, maybe there’s hope it can achieve some success with the G74. I just hope the brand has learned its lesson and doesn’t butcher M heritage further for this new undertaking.

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