Published:
13 May 2015At £88,300, the X5 M is slightly cheaper than a Range Rover Sport SVR or a Porsche Cayenne Turbo, but not by a margin that prospective buyers would worry about.
Standard kit is appropriate for a range-topper, but that didn’t stop our test car from accumulating an additional £10k worth of extras.
Assuming you don't fancy the mechanically identical X6 M, there's really only the spec list to worry about. Of the optional kit on our test car, we'd keep the stuff that should be standard anyway - the panoramic glass sunroof £1,295) and the reversing camera (£375) - and jettison the rest, including the 21in alloy wheels (£1,900).
Elsewhere, it will probably be the greater range that owners most appreciate about the V8’s improved economy. BMW claims 25.4mpg; we reduced that to 21.2mpg in True MPG testing.
Our data doesn’t go back far enough to cover the previous model, but slightly lengthening the time between pit stops will be triumph enough for those already acclimatised to the idea of repeatedly filling an 85-litre tank.
The drop in CO2 is worthy, too, although it’s all but redundant from a financial standpoint, as the £505-a-year VED band M starts at 255g/km, just below the X5 M’s 258g/km score.
