This is basically what you dream about when you realize you need to trade in your high-performance M-car for something that will fit your entire family.
If you’re a BMW M fan and have certain responsibilities to fulfill, trading in your old E90 M3 DKG for a brand new X5M might not be the horror show you’re imagining it to be.
In fact, you’d be trading in 420 PS and 400 Nm (295 lb-ft) for 575 PS and 750 Nm (553 lb-ft). Put aside the weight difference for a moment, because that is one seriously big difference, especially torque-wise.
The only thing you can’t do in a X5M that you could in an E90 M3 is have loads of fun on a twisty canyon road or on the track. You can enjoy yourself in the SUV, sure, but not as much as you can in the M3 – that will never happen.
However, once you move past the need for going sideways and braking into/exiting corners as efficiently as possible, you’ll realize that the X5M is actually the faster car here.
Even off the line, it’ll hit 100 km/h (62 mph) in just 4.2 seconds – and that’s half a second quicker than the M3!
As for this drag race, the X5M won, naturally. It wasn’t a blowout by any means, but it would have been literally impossible for the M3 to accelerate quicker than its much larger sibling.