I enjoyed the 2025 BMW X5 40i Silver Anniversary Edition more than I expected to. It comes off as an odd concoction on paper, but in person, it looks great and rides nicely. It’s the perfect example of how much you can change the look and attitude of a vehicle by just changing its tires.
The X5 and its once-and-future rivals, the Porsche Cayenne and Mercedes-Benz ML (now designated GLE), were unsettlingly iconoclastic when they came out around Y2K. So it’s a little ironic that 25 years later, today’s X5 is arguably one of the most conservatively styled and traditional-looking BMWs. While other models have gone for caricature grilles and exaggerated attributes, the X5 is still looking clean and classy.
The Silver Anniversary Edition spec invokes more ruggedness than other present-day X5s to make us remember the original as a sort of adventure rig—though it really wasn’t. A few select accessories lend it some visual distinctiveness, but most of the items in the $10,000 “Off-road Package” (as this limited-edition model is designated on the price sheet) are more about style than material performance enhancements. Still, it’s got power and traction, and those two stats will get you pretty far from pavement.
Overall, it’s a perfectly fine luxury car—or Sport Activity Vehicle, as BMW calls its crossovers.
The Basics
There are five variants of the 2025 (and 2026) BMW X5. The 40i in all-wheel drive (xDrive) or rear-wheel drive (sDrive), the more-powerful 50e hybrid, mighty M60i twin-turbo V8, and M Competition with a raucous 617 horsepower. The 40i xDrive is definitely the one to get—the 3.0 turbo inline six can return a respectable 27 mpg and still do 0 to 60 in just over five seconds. The AWD 40i lists for about $70,000; my test car was optioned up to just over $80,000.
The full Silver Anniversary equipment list includes the M Sport differential (effectively an automatic rear locker), two-axle air suspension that allows the car to drive at multiple ground-clearance heights, and 20-inch M Star-Spoke Bicolor 740M wheels, which, believe it or not, actually allow for a lot of sidewall. This bundle also includes Live Cockpit Pro (a very info-dense gauge cluster), a heads-up display, and a pretty long list of other luxury features. For the sake of clarity, here’s the list:
Carbon Fiber trim
Extended Shadowline Trim
Harman Kardon surround sound system
Heated Front Seats, Armrests & Illuminated Kidney Grille
Live Cockpit Pro (Incl. HUD)
M Shadowline Lights
M Sport Differential
Remote Engine Start
Roof rails in High-gloss Shado
Shadowline exterior trim
Trailer Hitch
2-axle air suspension
20″ M Star-Spoke Bicolor 740M
The xOffroad Package includes more functional features like some underbody protection, off-road drive modes, and xOffroad camera that basically just lets you use the 360-degree parking camera at speeds up to 22 mph to watch out for obstacles.
But the feature with the most impact on this vehicle’s off-piste performance is not in either of those bundles, it’s a Silver Edition option of General Grabber all-terrain tires. These have deep grooves and big tread blocks, giving them a lot of loose-surface grabbing power and a dramatic look. They’re 275/45R20, measuring about 29.7 inches in diameter. In Lime Rock Grey paint with all the black trim, and these black claws on its wheels, the Silver Anni X5 really does look kind of badass. I find the illuminated grille a little corny, but the rest of the accents and lighting elements are crisp and fierce.
The interior is cavernous, even for four adults plus a big haul of cargo. You and your spouse could tackle another couple of flea markets in this bad boy and fit some vintage furniture or art in the back. If it didn’t fit in the cargo hold, it might fit on the roof, as you can spec BMW OE roof racks for this model.
I loved the comfortortable seats, they have a real yacht-bridge heft to them. My wife and I did six hours across New England, and I didn’t mind at all. An active but not towering driving posture and visibility from behind the wheel are great, too. Interior materials quality is mostly good; big, swooping armrests on the door are elegant and substantial. But then in some spots, it kind of looks like designers ran out of time or interest and stopped designing. The headlight button is just a blob floating in this void of plastic, it’s bizarre. And the center console has a big expanse of carbon fiber that looks, well, it’s nice, but also somehow oddly undecorated besides the big “Silver Anniversary Edition” emblem. I can’t decide if that’s tacky, which is probably not a good sign. The illuminated, semi-opaque “X5” text on the passenger’s side of the dash is, uh, not my style, but it works with the dark leather and carbon.
Swipe here for a gallery:
The center console’s pretty cool. Some care was clearly taken to add artfulness to the switches, and the shifter provides some decisive satisfaction despite being an electric toggle rather than an old-fashioned lever.
And finally, there’s the display screen. That gigantic, cinemascope command center viewer stretched from the left of the steering wheel into the passenger’s side. BMW clearly spent a lot of energy making its digital interface visually unique and complex, too. There are all kinds of lines intersecting each other, colors, gradients, even familiar gauges have unexpected executions (the tach can be configured to look like a “>” symbol, for example).
I respect the designer’s effort, but I could not hate it more. It’s an overload of abstract nonsense that I find ugly and distracting. Which is too bad, because the X5 driving experience, even with the most modest engine option, is quite nice.
Driving the BMW X5 40i xDrive
In a straight line, coming on or off the power, the X5 is very smooth. It’s not slow, but the vehicle’s vibe does not organically encourage sporty driving. I just wanted to roll the windows down and trot around in this thing. In cornering, the steering is not bad, but not exactly engaging. The softness of the tires paired with the X5’s inherently somewhat stiff suspension and chassis takes a little getting used to—it does sink to the outside of a turn a lot more than you’d expect a BMW to.
The controls are generally pretty user-friendly. There’s not much to do besides put it in gear and change the ride height, or simply toggle a drive mode to suit your situation and let the car manage the suspension.
I went blasting down some gravel road and the X5 tracked perfectly—not a hint of slip on damp rocks at a decent clip. Sorry to say I couldn’t find a venue to rock-crawl, but I suspect ground clearance and approach angle would be the most limiting factors on very technical terrain. The vehicle is large but not huge, and the heavy armament of cameras and parking sensors would supplement your visibility quite well on a tight trail. Even with the suspension raised, the X5 has only about nine inches of ground clearance, about the same as a Subaru Outback.
This X5 felt just a little too wallowy for me to want to try tearing up back roads in, but at socially acceptable speeds it rode like a dream. And on the highway, it was supremely comfortable galloping for hours on end.
Verdict
This is a solid high-tier adventure rig. It’s plenty posh for the price point, and looks great.
With careful driving, you could get through a lot of interesting trails around America in one of these. Stuff like the Mojave Road, Smarts Canyon, and plenty of not-steep-but-gnarly stuff all over the Southwest would be doable in this, thanks largely to the tires, traction control system, and camera views. The Rubicon, Moab, or anywhere that requires a lot of steep steps would be too rough on the X5, off-road package or not. But you could really explore a lot with this, on-highway or off.
It’d be a lovely daily driver, too. And it’s not even terrible on gas for its size. It’s a little cumbersome and should be given some respect, especially when driving in tight areas or neighborhoods, but it strikes a good balance between interior sprawl space and a manageable footprint.
I enjoyed driving it—it made me feel fancy and kind of fun. However, while it feels a little nuts making a design feature a dealbreaker, but I’m not sure if I could live with BMW’s modern gauges and infotainment experience. It’s a little exhausting to look at and use. And aesthetically, I find it off-putting.
If you’re looking at Range Rover Sports, high-end Jeep Grand Cherokees, or maybe even a lower-end Porsche Cayenne, this slightly off-roadified Silver Anniversary X5 could be an interesting alternative.
2025 BMW X5 Silver Anniversary Specs | |
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Quick Take
Nice-driving SUV with the slightest flair for the dramatic.
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