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Spyshots: 2018 BMW X5 Reveals Laser Lights and More Aggressive Design

The BMW X5 will soon lose the title of the largest sports activity vehicle in the Bavarian carmaker's lineup to the X7, but we doubt that will have any real effect on its worldwide sales.
2018 BMW X5 13 photos
Photo: CarPix
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Just when the world was beginning to go crazy on the idea of an SUV, BMW decided to set itself slightly aside while making sure it remained close enough to the core of the revolution to capitalize on the new trend. That's when it launched the X5, and with it, the notion of a sports activity vehicle (or SAV).

Of course, everybody still calls the X5 an SUV, because that was just BMW marketing talk, but it served the purpose: making sure the driving pleasure ethos attributed to the Bavarian brand remained intact even though it started selling cars with high ground clearance and a high seating position.

Three generations later and BMW is preparing to launch the fourth. Sitting on the new CLAR platform, the 2018 X5 is a vehicle redesigned from the ground up. It will still look like the X5 we all know (and some of us even love), but other than aesthetically, this SAV is a new one.

It does share its basic underpinnings with the 7 and 5 Series as well as the upcoming X7 larger brother, so the new X5 will feel right as home to anyone familiar with these models. In other words, despite changing a lot on the 2018 model, it won't feel like a revolution, but rather a more profound evolution.

Fans of the existing model will see that as good news, but BMW has proven in later years that it's a conservative manufacturer, so we're used to not expecting any big surprises from it, especially with its core models. However, the 2018 X5 will bring the Bavarian SAV up to par with the latest technological advancements.

That's a bad omen for Mercedes-Benz whose GLE-Class SUV is older than the current X5 as it is, and struggling hard to hide its age. Other competitors are more up to date - the Audi Q7 or the Porsche Cayenne - but expect the BMW to up the ante for them as well.

These spy shots show the SUV up close, revealing a full set of production lights and what seems to be a larger kidney grille for a more aggressive look. The headlights with the blue interior bevel in the center suggest they use laser technology, the technology first deployed by BMW in its i8 hybrid sports car.

The engines should vary from two-liter four cylinder diesel units (for the European market) to three-liter inline sixes with various numbers of turbochargers and the 4.4-liter V8 unit in the X5 M that should launch the following year. The ActiveHybrid version will also carry over probably with better EV performances.

We expect BMW to launch the new X5 at this year's Frankfurt Motor Show that starts just next month, where it will probably share the stage with a very close to production ready X7 concept, making the venue a very important one for BMW's SAV ambitions.
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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