The first front wheel drive based BMW M car vehicle is coming and it might be in the shape of the BMW X1M. While it’s just a photo we can verify this is indeed a BMW M test mule and it does have the exclusive quad tailpipes BMW reserves for its full M cars. Whatever form this ultimately takes (X2?) it’s the first time we’ve seen A front wheel drive based BMW potentially tweaked into full M form.

Whatever form this takes, the X1’s optional xDrive system will surely be standard here, which means this will be a predominantly a front wheel drive car and thus represents a very different challenge for M engineers. Likely under the hood will be the long rumored hybridized B48 four cylinder with at least 360 HP and a 0-60 time in the low four second range. Perhaps more importantly BMW will likely be heavily refining the suspension with much more track focused mechanicals, adding larger brakes (likely even larger than the four piston brakes in the 35i models) and plenty of much needed cooling for track work.

It’s difficult to know about timing but if this is an X1M, we can make some assumptions based on these test mules. We’d guess that timing is likely first half of 2023 with a MSRP of near $60k. If it’s something else, all bets are off in terms of predictions.

BMW X1M