It’s hard to imagine a time when BMW’s portfolio wasn’t chock-full of SUVs. The current lineup starts with the X1 and tops out with the X7, alongside the unconventionally styled iX and XM models. Elsewhere in the BMW Group family, there's the Mini Aceman and Countryman, the Alpina XB7, and the Rolls-Royce Cullinan. For the BMW brand specifically, the original X5 kicked off its SUV craze. But things could’ve turned out vastly different.
Had management not greenlit the "E53," you might’ve been able to buy a Land Rover directly from a BMW dealership. In the early 1990s, the company noticed the growing popularity of SUVs in North America. A key trigger for BMW's interest in branching out was the Ford Explorer’s success, which became a huge hit after launching in 1991.
But higher-ups in Munich were concerned a tall vehicle wouldn’t align with the brand’s identity. At the time, the company was focused on sedans and wagons, as well as the in-development Z3 roadster. Instead of immediately pursuing a BMW-branded SUV, the company took a shortcut: It bought Land Rover from the Rover Group in 1994, via British Aerospace.
However, a problem quickly emerged. The first modern Range Rover (P38A), introduced that same year, "was outdated even before it launched," BMW said in a recent history story. By 1995, engineers were already working on the L322 Range Rover. Meanwhile, at BMW’s Special Vehicles department, led by Burkhard Göschel, something else was brewing: A BMW counterpart to the Range Rover. Göschel knew the then-chairman "was totally against this," but pushed ahead, stressing the "difference between both brands."
BMW of North America president Vic Doolan also advocated for an SUV, aware that Mercedes-Benz was developing the M-Class and Lexus was working on the RX. In a meeting with board members, Doolan presented two options: Either launch a BMW SUV or merge dealerships with Land Rover.
'We had two choices. One, we could combine BMW and Land Rover dealerships, so each marque could retain its identity and create a cross-sell opportunity. The alternative was to introduce a BMW SUV.'
That's not all. Doolan even created a rendering of a joint BMW-Land Rover dealership, but it was met with fierce resistance. Land Rover’s Sales and Marketing Director, John Russell, reportedly said: "Over my dead f***ing body."
Also present at the late November 1995 meeting was BMW’s board member for R&D, Wolfgang Reitzle, who abruptly ended the discussion after seeing the merged dealership proposal. But the proposal may have been a strategic move. Thomas Plucinsky, Head of BMW Group Classic USA, told Motor1 he believes Doolan’s real intent all along was to push for a standalone BMW SUV:
'I can’t say for sure, but I suspect that Doolan presented the combined dealership proposal knowing (or at least hoping) that it would be rejected by Land Rover in order to strengthen his case for a BMW SUV.'
'There were two camps in BMW at the time about building an SUV: Those for it and those who thought it would be bad for the BMW brand, and besides, we owned Land Rover—arguably the most storied SUV brand in the market.'
BMW’s Head of Product Planning at the time, Rich Brekus, also championed the idea of an SUV, but without the go-anywhere capabilities of a Range Rover:
'I told them I didn’t want a truck. I wanted the form factor of an SUV, but I wanted it to drive like a car. This was all about on-road performance, and I didn’t care about off-road.'
Brekus also criticized Mercedes’ approach with the M-Class for its body-on-frame layout: "All wrong," he said, adding, "nobody wants that." That prediction didn’t hold up, as the original M-Class was a hit, even though Mercedes later switched to unibody construction with the second-gen model in 2005.
At BMW, early SUV experiments included raising the 5 Series Touring’s suspension. This tall wagon also used Land Rover’s Hill Descent Control, eliminating the need for a bulky transfer case to save weight. A 1994 sketch by BMW's Designworks subsidiary in Los Angeles, penned by Chris Chapman, shows an SUV-ified version of the E39. Later in the development stage, the X5 got the MacPherson strut front and multilink rear suspension from the 5 and 7 Series, but made from steel rather than aluminum for greater durability.
Compared to the sketch, the final version evolved after requests to extend the rear for more cargo space. Frank Stephenson played a key role in shaping the design, especially tweaking the C-pillars to give it a more wagon-like profile. BMW decided it wouldn’t be another Sport Utility Vehicle, but rather a Sport Activity Vehicle, a jargon still used today.
Yet management remained skeptical. The breakthrough came when BMW realized it needed a new product to fill capacity at its underutilized Spartanburg plant. Assigning a volume model to the South Carolina facility ultimately secured the business case for the E53. BMW sold Land Rover to Ford in 2000, a year after the X5 debuted, without ever selling Range Rovers through its dealerships.
It's worth noting that the first luxury SUV from Bavaria was actually ready for launch in 1998, but didn’t arrive until a year later. Chris Chapman told Autoblog that the X5 was initially shelved out of fears it would eat into Range Rover sales or would sell poorly:
'Well, look, you know, BMW isn’t known for SUVs. And so, they killed it, and it went into the cellar for a whole year. So the car actually would have come out in 1998.'
BMW is now the undisputed luxury automaker, while Tata Motors’ Jaguar Land Rover recently reported its highest profit in a decade. That success is attributed mainly to Land Rover, as Jaguar has been reduced to a single model, the F-Pace, ahead of its planned reinvention in 2026 as a high-end EV brand.
Had things unfolded differently, though, who knows how both brands could have looked today.
