Here’s your first look at the next BMW X5

By Vijay Pattni - Top Gear

This isn’t the new, fourth-generation BMW X5 SUV. It is a prototype version of the new, fourth-generation BMW X5 SUV, which is set to be revealed later on this year.

And, as you can see, it likes to jump around. BMW has released a set of images showcasing the gruelling training regime its new SUV is undertaking to make sure it’s fighting fit. Yeah, we’re gonna need a montage.

Apparently, the next X5 will feature “new suspension and chassis systems” that allow the SUV to adapt to whatever terrain you throw at it, “be it snow, sand, rocks or gravel roads”. Should also work exceedingly well on that other terrain of ‘massively-potholed-and-congested-road-to-my-child’s-school’.

We’re told the new X5 has tested at BMW’s winter centre in Sweden, on gravel tracks in South Africa and in America’s deserts. It’s even been on a high-speed circuit in Talladega and at that Other Scary Racetrack in Germany. Name escapes us.

Those last couple of places give an insight into just how important pointiness is to the new BMW SUV. Indeed, BMW says adaptive M suspension and ‘integral active steering’ will be offered for the first time on the X5 with the new generation.

The very first X5 of course, kind of set a standard for how a big, heavy SUV can bend physics to its will, with many other carmakers following suit. These days everyone’s going on about sporting ability in their 4x4s.

Stay tuned for more…