BMW XM Spied With BMW's Most Offensive Grilles Yet

The BMW XM will, without a doubt, be the brand's most controversial vehicle ever. It couldn't ruffle more feathers if it tried, and although it will be toned down somewhat from the Concept XM shown to the world last year, it will still be an ungainly machine that does not deserve to be BMW M's halo car. How do we know it will be ungainly? Well, we recently saw the non-M version (we're confused too) struggle around the Nurburgring, and based on the reports of our spy photographers, the M model you see here is not performing much better.

How BMW M plans to deal with the physics of its heftiest vehicle yet remains to be seen, but that's a problem that the engineers will have to get around. In the meantime, these new spy shots show the least camouflage of any test mules we've seen so far, revealing the horizontal bars in the grilles for the first time. We can also make out some of the front bumper design, showing that the production BMW XM will eschew the design of the Concept XM and will rather wear a bumper similar to that of the new X4 M. A less angular design will be shown on the rear bumper.

As fresh as these images are, they reveal little compared to the leaked model we saw last month. With that in mind, we're going to keep quiet about this thing until it's finally revealed, which is expected to happen at the tail-end of this year. We expect that the so-called regular version will produce in the region of 650 horsepower from its 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 hybrid powertrain while the full-fat model should mirror the 750 hp promised by the concept, making it BMW M's most powerful vehicle to date. More details will become available in the coming months to either enthuse or irritate you.