The BMW X5 Le Mans Concept: The first attempt at creating a ///M SUV.

BMW and motorsport is almost like a natural combination. Just like cows and milk or whatever combination you can think of. Everyone knows the stunning E9 3.0 CSLs, the very successful E30 M3 DTM race cars and the legendary, fire-breathing M1 Procars. Lots of motorsport technologies found their ways into BMW’s production vehicles. These technologies also found their ways into the BMW X5 Le Mans concept, the car I would like to tell you more about. But before doing that, I would like to tell you more about the origin of the motorsport technologies in this concept car.

In 1998, BMW decided to return to the 24-hours of Le Mans with two cars after a few years of absence. Together with WilliamsF1 engineers they developed the BMW V12 LM, a car which should have been capable of making a good shot at victory they thought. After McLaren had refused to continue its successful partnership with BMW Motorsport any longer, the Bavarian brand turned to one of its long time BMW racing teams: Schnitzer Motorsport. Schnitzer agreed to be part of the partnership and took the responsibility of running the cars as a factory team.

Unfortunately, the race was quite unfortunate for the Bavarian team. During a test day in May at Le Mans, it became clear that the two cars were not fast enough to be competitive against their rivals. On race day, the team dealt with more bad luck. After 43 and 60 laps, BMW detected vibrations in the drivetrain at high speeds. In order to not risk catastrophic failure of the car at high speed, the team decided to retire both cars.
You canconclude that the return to Le Mans was very unsuccessful for BMW. So they decided to come back stronger a year later. But BMW’s rivals also made huge steps in development of the LMP-cars.

To come back stronger, BMW, Williams and Schnitzer developed a whole new car: The BMW V12 LMR. The new LMP-car retained the same BMW S70/3 6.0 liter V12 from the V12 LM, but the car’s body and aerodynamics were redone from scratch. The debut of the car at the 12 Hours of Sebring showed to the car was much faster. The car took pole position in qualifying and one of the cars took the overall win. This result gave BMW good spirits for the race at Le Mans, but tough competition was expected from BMW’s rivals. Toyota had updated the GT-Ones, Mercedes debuted with the fast CLRs, Audi debuted for the first time at Le Mans with their R8R and Panoz brought two new LMP-cars with them.

During the race, the BMW showed a good race pace, but they weren’t fast enough in comparison to the Toyotas. The Mercedes-Benz cars were dropped out of the race due to big aero dynamical problems. (Almost everyone has seen the huge crashes of Mark Webber and Peter Dumbreck). Also two of the three Toyotas crashed later on in the race. The other LMP-cars were not fast enough to be competitive for the BMWs and the Toyota. Unfortunately, some bad luck came into play. The #17 BMW crashed due to a stuck throttle. The #15 now was the only competitive car left to defeat the remaining Toyota. BMW accomplished to do so. Well the driver combination Winkelhock-Martini-Dalmas did so. Despite having a slightly slower car, the V12 LMR had to pit less than the Toyota due to better fuel efficiency.

To celebrate the V12 LMR’s victory at Le Mans, BMW wanted to put its S70/3 6.0 liter V12 into one of its production car. BMW had two cars in which they could have fitted the engine. The first car was the 8-series, but this car was at the end of its life cycle. So BMW then decided to fit the engine in the new E53 X5 to prove that a SUV could be seriously fast. On top of that, the engineers of BMW’s M-GmbH wanted to explore the limits of the X5’s capabilities and they wanted to prove that a SUV could be seriously fast.

In an episode of the German TV show GRIP – Das Motormagazin, BMW Group Classic’s expert historian Florian Moser rightly says, that the search of the X5’s limits was very important to see what the possibilities are of a SUV. On top of that, he notes that if this concept car was not made then there perhaps have never been sporty SUVs, like the X5M, the X6M and maybe performance SUVs from other manufacturers.

The engine in the X5 Le Mans concept car had a power output of around 700hp, way more than the 590+hp in the LMP-car. To get this power down properly, BMW fitted a 4-wheeldrive system and a 6-speed manual transmission. Because of this lunatic drivetrain, the car was capable to do 0-100kmh in 4.6 seconds. The top speed was electronically limited top 311 kmh. To stop this monstrously fast, but also heavy, car, carbon-ceramic brakes were installed. Furthermore, the car was given a lowered suspension, a stripped out interior with Recaro bucket seats and Sabelt harnesses, big 20 inch wheels and a very racy body kit.

To prove its power and speed, BMW took the X5 Le Mans to the Nürburgring Nordschleife. A mind-boggling lap time of 7 minutes and 50 seconds was set by the famous driver Hans-Joachim Stuck.

You can conclude that the engineers of M-GmbH absolutely succeeded in proving that a SUV can be seriously fast. Unfortunately, a production version of the concept car never came. This is quite obvious, because a racing engine is very expensive and isn’t made to last hundreds of thousands kilometres. However, a production M-version based on the E53 X5 also never came. After more research, done by BMW engineers, BMW decided to put a X5M into production based on the newer E70 X5 in 2009. This X5M was also very powerful, but it didn’t have such a brutal engine as the X5 Le Mans Concept had.

Specs:
• A 700hp naturally aspirated 6.0 liter V12.
• 720 nm at 5000 rpm.
• An electronically limited top speed of 311 kmh.
• 0-100 kmh could be done in 4.6 seconds.

Thank you very much for reading!

Here is a video of Hans-Joachim Stuck driving the X5 Le Mans Concept. Listen to that V12!