This is what happens when the marketing types in their skinny-legged suits and R1000 haircuts stick their shiny Italian shoes up the overall-clad backsides of the engineering types.

I can almost picture the howl of protest from the petrolheads at BMW’s M-division when they were told they have to prostitute their souls by plonking M-badges onto huge SUV’s. So what if the Motorsport Division has never before been asked to produce road cars that are inherently unsuited for a race track? So what if all M-cars have always been rear-wheel drive? So what if all M-cars have always had manual gearboxes? Or that they’ve always been naturally aspirated? Or that subtlety was more important than crassly shouting “my M-badge is bigger than yours”?

It counts for nothing in a market-driven world where the pressure is on to sell cars at all costs, even if it means adding a pedigreed motorsport badge on a turbocharged 4x4 SUV with an auto box. If Mercedes-Benz can sell ML AMG’s and Porsche can sell the Cayenne Turbo’s, it was only a matter of time before BMW followed suit.It’s still disappointing though, a bit like finding out Superman uses his X-ray vision to peek through the walls of the ladies change room at the Daily Planet. BMW’s M-division clearly isn’t the superhero the guys who glue fake M-badges to their E36 316i’s thought it was.

So let’s get over that particular kick-in-the-gut and try to evaluate the X5 M objectively. Here goes. It is an outstanding piece of engineering, a hulk of car capable of demolishing 0–100kph in around five seconds, limited to a top speed of 250kph, packed with technology and luxury features and dynamically it performs like something weighing half of its 2.3 tons.