It all started when the owner of a wrecked BMW X5 E53 4.4i requested aftermarket specialists at Fluid Motor Union (FMU) to bring it back to life. Shortly after, however, the customer abandoned the car with the people at FMU, who took possession of the X5 and decided to do something special with it. They called it Project X.
Their briefing was simple: “We settled on creating a vehicle that oozed the aesthetic of urban assault, with the typical Fluid goal of launching fireballs.” Sounds like fun, right? First thing they changed on the car were the wheels, fitting huge Cragar’s steel rims shod in Dick Cepek rubber. Not your everyday tires, we should mention, as they are covered in skulls and bones.
FMU then developed their own custom lift kit for the X5’s suspension setup, increasing ground clearance by between 1 and 2 inches (25-50 mm). The final technical modification was adding a 304 stainless steel exhaust, with the two tips in the middle of the rear bumper responsible for flame spitting.
Fluid Motor Union worked on the car’s exterior by attaching an enormous black-painted bull-bar to the front end, a roof rack to place the spare wheel on, and a pair of Hella projector lights. The front also got a sinister-looking skid plate to protect the car’s radiator.
Finally, it applied a custom matte Field Grey pain to the SUV’s body. On the inside, some trim pieces were painted satin black, the same color as the kidney grilles. Not surprisingly, FMU found a new owner for the car during the customizing process.
You can take a look at the final result in the gallery below and check out the X5’s flame-spitting abilities in the following video.
By Dan Mihalascu
Story References: FMU via Caradisiac
PHOTO GALLERY
VIDEO