BMW X5 M Competition Needs More Juice to Hit 186 MPH

And there's one more thing that keeps me awake at night sometimes. What's the fastest speed I will ever go in a car before I die? If I live another 30 years from now, I hope I'll at least experience 248 mph (400) kph on a closed section of road. That may be the norm by 2054. But I should stop daydreaming and get back to the topic at hand. We've all seen this reviewer having fun on the Autobahn for years and years.

He always plays it safe despite frequently hitting the 186 mph mark. This German highway no-speed limit section has been his playground hundreds of times. And with each new test, we see how far automotive technology has come. For this test, he drives the 2024 BMW X5 M Competition, one of the fastest SUVs ever made. It's the fourth generation of a car that has been around since 1999. And many hardcore fans still regard it as the ultimate BMW SUV, ignoring the new XM in the process.

The massive TwinPower Turbo 4.4-liter V8 under the hood is good enough for 617 hp and 553 lb-ft (750 NM) and also features 48V mild-hybrid tech. But we must remember how big of a machine it is at over 5,000 lbs (2,267 kg) and a height of 68.9 inches (175 cm). That's 17.6 inches (44.7 cm) more than a Porsche 911 Turbo S. All that grunt should deliver more than the limited standard 155 mph (250 kph) top speed.

You need to pay BMW an extra $2,500 over the standard $122,300 MSRP ($995 destination charge not included), and you can unlock the full potential of your car. Despite the extra weight and size, the X5 M Competition can still run the 1/4-mile (402 meters) in under 12 seconds. And it will need two more seconds from that point on to hit 124 mph. But the stakes are much higher for this Autobahn test.

My colleague, Mircea Panait, wrote a story about the world's fastest SUVs in June 2023, and the X5 M took P15 out of 20 cars. One thing's clear after seeing the video below: this can indeed hit 180 mph! But it's no walk in the park. It makes you wonder how much horsepower it would need to hit the same top speed as the Purosangue, which could reportedly hit 193 mph (310 kph). I know that car is three times as expensive and that testing SUVs for maximum speed is irrelevant either way, but I'm sure we'll find out sooner or later.