Yahoo Autos 2024 BMW XM Label Red is the most powerful street-legal BMW ever
In our First Drive review of the 2023 BMW XM, we called Munich's new husky and high-powered SUV "more engaging and better to drive than its purely combustion-engine performance SUV offerings," "the best performance SUV BMW has screwed together yet," and "a sign of good things to come." Introducing the first good thing to come: the 2024 BMW XM Label Red. Perhaps the first thing you'll notice is that the super sporty SUV is called Label Red instead of Red Label. Until BMW explains this unexpected transposing, our guess is that Bentley would have put down its scotch to raise a manicured finger in objection to BMW using Red Label. The English automaker hasn't produced a Red Label vehicle in ages, a fact that didn't stop Crewe's legal team from filing to trademark the term in August 2021.
Besides potential chicanery in the badge area, what do we have? Only the most powerful BMW ever made. The 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 in the standard XM makes 483 horsepower and 419 pound-feet of torque. It's assisted by an e-motor set into the eight-speed transmission that creates the M Hybrid system and produces 194 hp and 207 hp. In the XM Label Red, the ICE by itself discharges 577 hp and 553 lb-ft. while e-motor output remains unchanged. Back to the base model, total output on the ground floor of XM world comes to 644 hp and 590 lb-ft., whereas the XM Label Red trumps that with a square 738 hp and 738 lb-ft of torque. The Label Red shrinks the 0-60 time from 4.1 seconds to 3.7 seconds and gooses top speed from 168 mph to 175 mph when optioned with the M Driver's Package.
If there's any mundane spec, it's that the fuel tank in the XM holds 18.2 gallons of gasoline, just 1.1 gallon more than the Porsche Macan. Enthusiastic XM Label Red drivers will burn through premium refills with astonishing swiftness.
