Considering just how good SUV – or SAV as BMW calls its products – sales have been doing lately, BMW’s decision to cut the X5’s life span short makes sense more than ever. When news of such a decision broke out, fans of the brand frowned upon it but as time went by and other manufacturers drastically updated their line-ups, the reasons behind this decision became rather obvious. What we’re looking at here then is the upcoming 2019 G05 BMW X5.

The new G05 platform, as the name suggests, will be using CLAR technology. That means it will be lighter and modular, being shared between the X5, X6 and X7. We have it on good authority that the new X5 will enter production at the same time as the bigger X7 in the Spartanburg plant which makes sense financially. The two will be released a couple of months apart in 2018, with production scheduled to kick off in October.

And while we already know technology from the new 7 Series and 5 Series will be infused in them, the engines the two models will be using still remain unknown. In the US, the X5 will be sold under the xDrive40i and xDrive40d nameplates, using new-generation B-family engines. Both of them will have 320 HP.

The rest of the world will get a wider range of choices going from xDrive30i to xDrive30d and, of course, the xDrive50i which will also be the top of the range model in North America, excluding the M version. That’s actually the car showcased in the video below, being tested on the ‘Ring. Sounding like a wounded tiger, the V8 architecture of the plant under the hood is rather obvious. The question is: how big is it?

Puns aside, there’s good reason to believe that the engineers are working on a new V8 powerplant, unconfirmed sources inside Munich whispering of a smaller 4-liter twin-turbo mill that would take over from where the N63 unit left off. Considering the amount of issues BMW had to deal with related to the N63 engine, a change might be considered by many as long overdue.

While these changes have not been confirmed yet, the alternative points at the latest update for the 4.4-liter twin-turbo mill, used on the M550i xDrive model. With more power and torque under its belt, this mill could make its way under the hood of the new X5 and X7 without the M Performance badge being slapped on their bodies. No matter what BMW chooses to do though, this thing sounds like a V8 should.

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