Why does the new BMW X5 think it’s a 1960s racing car?

This is the new BMW XX XX 5. No, not a typo. The new X5 is so proud of its status as the latest generation of BMW’s longest-lived, monumentally successful X-series vehicle, that it’s got more ‘x’s across its face than a lovestruck teen’s text history.

See? XX 00 XX.

Is it just us who sees those new X-shaped running lights and thinks of the overlapping tape that used to be fixed to racing car headlamps in the 1950s and 1960s, to stop shattered glass littering the track when they crashed?

The rest of the new X5’s look is, um, well, ah, yes. Hmm. Polarising? From these first pictures, we’re not sure the i3 and iX3’s ‘Neue Klasse’ styling works as well on the larger, slabbier X5. The wheelarch creases look odd somehow, and the front grilles and intakes have something of the ‘beaver after a hearty Sunday lunch’ about them.

Oh, and what’s with the obsession for deleting door handles? Like the electric M3 concept we saw recently, the new X5 doesn’t have proper grab handles, or even pop-out ones. Each door gets a little fin with an electronic release built-in. Because aerodynamics matter… in an enormous bluff-fronted road-hog.

Once you’ve mastered opening the door, closing it is easier, as BMW has pinched Rolls-Royce’s self-closing door tech and lumped it into the options list here.

Inside, it’s good news for X5 buyers, and annoying if you’ve just ordered the latest 7 Series. Because this mid-range BMW SUV now has pretty much the same interior as you get in Munich’s latest limousine. Same angled main touchscreen, same small, odd-looking steering wheel which you peer over, not through, to view projected instrumentation at the base of the windscreen.

In fairness, we’ve tried all of that tech in the iX3 – Top Gear’s 2026 Car of the Year – and it works brilliantly. Much more intuitive than the latest Mercedes SuperDuperHyperMegaScreen.

The X5 gets the extra passenger display grafted rather awkwardly onto the side of the dashboard where there isn’t a steering wheel, because clearly you’re not getting enough screen time already. Heaven forbid you might read a book or look out a window.

Naturally, BMW’s going big on electric here. So for the first time, there’s an iX5 offering up to 525 miles of indicated range, because the battery is a gargantuan 141kWh chonky boy.

Does that mean the (even uglier) BMW iX is now… pointless? This is almost as big, goes further, and has more up-to-date tech. Watch this space.

Even with 578bhp, it ain’t the fastest new X5. No, that honour goes to the X5 M60e xDrive, which is a German way of saying “I have 612bhp thanks to a 3.0-litre straight-six turbo and enough hybrid boost to drive 63 miles on EV power alone". Which is even more of a mouthful. Anyway, that quad-piped X5 can muller its way from 0-62mph in 4.5 seconds, which is faster than the Germans can lose a penalty shoot-out. Too soon?

Surprisingly given the hybrid and EV onslaught, BMW hasn’t given up on diesel. Brits will be able to choose a version of this new X5 with a 313bhp turbodiesel powertrain good for a claimed 40mpg on the current test, though that may change when new regs come in soon.

Then there’s all the unseen tech – the rear-wheel steering, the adaptive multi-height air suspension, the Level 2 cruise control assist that’ll drive you along at up to 81mph and make automatic lane changes when you check the door mirror.

Question is, has the new BMW X5 got a face you’d never want to see reflected back at you?