Shown here officially for the first time is the BMW X7, 12 months ahead of when you will be able to buy one. Not all is being revealed yet – that will come later at one of this year’s motor shows – but under that protective wrap it is clear there’s a big and bold new BMW here, just as imposingly bluff-fronted as the X7 Concept we saw at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2017.
That was sufficiently controversial-looking to recall Chris Bangle’s design reinvention of the 1990s. The production version of the X7 may not be quite as wild but even so, it is expected to introduce a new design language for BMW, distancing it from the X5 (on which it is based) and creating a separate and more exclusive image as the firm’s new luxury flagship.
What exactly do the pictures show? The first pre-production models being built in BMW’s X family plant in Spartanburg – strange but true, this US facility is now BMW’s largest plant worldwide, showing just what the power of X means to BMW these days.
The X7 will be the fifth X model to be built in Spartanburg, and will take production towards the 450,000 cars a year plant maximum. With almost three quarters of them exported, in value terms, BMW is America’s largest vehicle exporter.