BMW spent a good portion of this week ensuring the public that it is an aggressively forward-thinking brand with a clear plan for mobility and electrification. However, it took things a step further by letting the upcoming Frankfurt Motor Show patrons know it’s offering “a whole new take on luxury” with its X7 iPerformance Concept.
Clearly assembled in a manner designed to embrace futurism and highlight its proposed electrified drivetrain, the X7 is unnecessarily odd-looking. The sculpted body could be handsome, had some designer decided not to accent it with gregarious chrome trim inlayed at right angles. Likewise, the brand’s signature kidney grille seems to have gone off the rails completely. BMW admits the styling aspect “hogs the attention” and urges us to “look at it again” so that we might truly understand the vibrancy and class it exudes.
You’re welcome to humor them, but we found even a fifth look didn’t remedy the situation. The grille remains an oversized eyesore, begging to be toned down. Thankfully, there’s more going on here than an overcooked exterior. The X7 Concept introduces an important third row to BMW’s sport-utility lineup, as well as a plug-in hybridized powerplant with twin turbochargers.
Additional details on that powertrain are missing, however. We’re expecting something akin to BMW’s pre-existing 2.0-liter turbocharged four-pot hybrid, found on the X5, with a swath of conventional sixes and eights using forced induction. But BMW isn’t willing to admit to anything specific yet.
The interior is a little more straightforward. With three rows offering two seats apiece, BMW promises the X7 will have the most expansive cabin of any vehicle in its 101-year history. Group design chief Adrian van Hooydonk specified that the SUV can also be had with other seating configurations once it reaches production.
Second-row chairs will offer the same niceties as the front, including positioning that allows passengers to enjoy the panoramic roof and customizable touch-screens for rear-seat entertainment. Those screens integrate with the ones up front using BMW’s cloud-enabled Connected service.
For the driver, the digital displays include a 12.3-inch instrument cluster and central touchscreen information display in close proximity. Both are oriented toward the operator for a cockpit-like feel, vaguely resembling Mercedes-Benz’s recent efforts.
Materials used are lavish and luxurious but, as this is a concept vehicle, they might not be worth getting too excited over. There is time for BMW to make changes — which brings us back to the body.
From the outside, it’s not the prettiest of pictures. However, making a gargantuan SUV elegant is a lot to ask of any automaker. The grille is abysmal but, since the vehicle is already so massive, narrowing those inlets could make it look like the turtle from The NeverEnding Story. There’s just so much face there to manage. Similarly, the few lines on the X7 seem to stretch out forever along colossal panels — making the car seem even bigger than it already is. Huge 23-inch wheels help to keep things more proportional in photos, but they’ll do a lot less in the real world.
We’re not sure what the solution is; we only know that BMW needs to have one. Then again, maybe today’s upper-crust soccer moms enjoy a little vehicular bling.
The X7 will ride on the same CLAR platform underpinning the 7 Series and will be built at BMW’s U.S. plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Production should commence sometime in 2018, setting the SUV up for a 2019 model year debut.
[Images: BMW]
reminds me of a coypu.
Oy Vey! WTF?
Volvo HAS TO file a lawsuit over this.
Slam dunk.
Just squinting a little bit and I totally agree with you. But they managed to totally destroy a coherent basic shape with ludicrously ugly details.
I get that BMW has needed a three row X-series competitor for the M-B GL and the Audi Q7 for over a decade. I criticized them as much here before. It seems like a logical profit maker for them, given the market for such things.
I’m just shocked that after dragging their heels on it, they made something so ridiculous looking. The interior seems more in line with the rest of their vehicles, but the exterior is awful. I literally know nothing about design, but I know ugly when I see it.
It’s a concept.
They’re not shipping this.
(I assume.)
(But they did ship the i3 and i8, so …)
If successful men would just stop buying cars like these for their wives, maybe auto makers would stop making them.
Good thing it’s only a concept. BMW can start over and make something different. Heck, even the model in the white bell bottoms parked in the middle of nowhere and walked away from it.
I like how she blocked half the grille in her first picture. The photographer didn’t want the whole shoot to be a failure.
It looks better than the Infiniti Q-whatever dreadnought that trophy mommies demand when hub’s income can’t quite swing the BIG MBz thing, whatever that’s called this year. The GLOAT560? I hate all of these barges. These are rolling mansionettes.
Do you hate the Armada, Suburban, LandCruiser, and Expedition, too?
Or is it only the luxury-market ones?
Nice dental work.
Was your stylist the same one who did up Katie Perry for “Last Friday Night”?
That front end looks absolutely demonic. Another bloated SUV catering to the Kardashian set. Please don’t build!
I don’t think it’s time to get too excited for this. The real thing will be an X5+, whenever it comes out. The rest of the BMW lineup has already assured this for us.
I see a sales struggle if they price it in Range Rover territory.
Looks like it whistles when it uses the “s” sound.
But hey, at least they didn’t call it a coupe!
Grab a vertical element from Cadillac for the front and another from a Land Rover for behind the front wheel opening. Slap on some Lincoln taillights and it out to be ugly enough to sell like hotcakes. Cost and beautiful design no longer play together. Even if this isn’t near what it may look like, I’m skeptical it will be attractive.
The girl must’ve gotten lost on her way to an ABBA album shoot.
Now if the wind were blowing her billowous clothing tight against her frame…
I’m sorry what were we talking about?
I’m a half-hearted BMW fanboi, but yeah, I’ll just pretend this doesn’t exist.
I would have repaired that giant door dent before I rolled it out for a photo shoot. I guess pre-damaged is the new rugged. Like pre-faded jeans, or something.
I agree with BMW that the brand is ripe for electrocution.
I saw what you did there.
I’m going to steal it.
The oversized grille might work if the headlights are upsized to match. As it is, the combination of tiny headlights and gigantic grille come off as cartoonish.
“The oversized grille might work if the headlights are upsized to match. As it is, the combination of tiny headlights and gigantic grille come off as cartoonish.”
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/960/combo5.jpg
You all bitch and whine about this X7 BMW. But this will sell like crazy. LandRover will lose sales if this X7 goes into production.
No, it won’t.
If Infiniti can sell their QX80 with its hideous looking beluga whale looking front end. Yes, this X7 will sell and sell well.
QX80 makes this thing look great. I am prejudiced against people that would drive them.
Not sure the small number of people who buy a full size Rover are all going to switch to this monster.
I mean, if they weren’t Rover diehards, they’d already be driving a GL or LX, wouldn’t they?
(Yes, it’ll sell well. Especially if the actual retail one isn’t as ugly.
I just don’t see why it’s *Rover* who has to worry, especially.)
It’s….gross. It actually makes me feel uncomfortable.
Looks like the stylists at BWM have gone to the Pininfarina school of design and gave us an updated 1955 Nash Statesman! But not in a good way.
Looks like something Albert Speer would have dreamed up during an absinthe and cocaine binge.
Note to auto stylists: Just because you CAN make small headlights, doesn’t mean you SHOULD.
Headlights are the eyes of a car’s face. Tiny eyes ain’t pretty.
.
.
And for the rest of us on the road, larger lamps mean less light density (lumens per area) and thus less glare, in my experience
(I note that wee projector foglamps make for some glare, even when well aimed; they’re just *bright*.
The 7″ monsters on my old MB did not make for glare, at the same 55 watts of output.)
BMW has been building hideous tributes to their lessees’ bad taste ever since 2001. This is the next logical step, and it doesn’t provoke as strong a retch as the E65 did back then, nor the revelation that every future BMW would be a pile of dog vomit that came with the releases of the E60 and the Z4.
Reminds me of the Infinity which resembles a whale.
Pontiac called.
They way their concept grille from the 2011 Pontiac Torrent back.
Lincoln called. They want their sketches back.
This thing is crying out for a Civic Type R wing to be bolted onto the back…
BMW must have hired one of the Infinity designers. Definitely had whales on the mind.
“Definitely had whales on the mind.”
Chinese whales.
The Blau mit Weiss blood in me openly weeps out of my pores at this. I. Just. Can’t. Find me a pic of a clean E39…stat. All I can think of when I see the front end is “beaver” and not in a good way.
21st century Edsel. The Chinese will love it though.
Holy cow is this thing UGLY!!!!
The fact that it’s ugly shouldn’t affect its success in the market. VW/Bentley has already proved, with the Bentayga, that rich folks will buy ugly SUVs, as long they announce wealth, it doesn’t matter how ugly or vulgar they are (see also: Rolls Royce Phantom). Somewhere, Thorstein Veblen cracks a smile.
True, case in point, Honda civic
Did Ssangyong buy BMW?