But it ‘just’ became the X5
Volvo has Cross Country, Audi has Allroad, and Mercedes-Benz came up with All Terrain versions in response. However, BMW has never ventured into lifted station wagons, except for this one example we saw driving in 1995. It turned out to be a precursor to the later X5.
The three German premium brands keep a close eye on each other like hawks. Anyone who doubts this only needs to look at how BMW and Mercedes-Benz presented the iX3 and GLC two days apart in September. In the same segment, following the same recipe and with comparable performance, both are cars with an important role in the history of their brand, and the resemblance is almost eerie.
Nevertheless, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi are not always ready with a fitting answer to a car from one of the others. For example, BMW was allowed to keep its strange GT models to itself, Mercedes is currently the only one of the three with a powerful sports car, and BMW never felt the need to raise an existing model to an Allroad-like vehicle. Although that recipe was not invented by Audi – Subaru was earlier – it was popularized partly by Audi. Mercedes followed on a smaller scale with the All-Terrain models, but BMW has always ignored the concept.
Or not? Above this story, you can see a heavily lifted 5-series Touring, notably from the E34 generation, and thus considerably older than the first Audi Allroad. The car sits extremely high on its wheels and has gigantic wheels with matching tires. The wheel arches have been significantly flared to accommodate all of this, and together with the strongly extended bumpers and sills, this indeed results in an Allroad-like BMW.
This eventually became BMW’s first SUV: the E53 X5 from 1999. Without a Range Rover basis…
Nevertheless, every enthusiast immediately sees that this is obviously not a production model, but a so-called ‘mule’. That is a car that serves only as camouflage for the underlying technology. The ‘E34’ photographed in 1995 (AutoWeek 20, for the enthusiast) therefore houses the technology of BMW’s first SUV. In 1995, this was not yet such a common recipe, so we still called it an ‘off-road vehicle’. We therefore thought that the car would share its technology with the Range Rover, a product of Land Rover, which BMW owned at the time. In theory, BMW might indeed have wanted to test that idea in practice by hiding a Range Rover under a 5-series, but BMW’s first production SUV would ultimately be very different. The first X5 became a car with a self-supporting body and the 5-series E39 as its basis, Land Rover was sold in 2000, and an Allroad-like model would never come from BMW.