BMW just pulled the wraps off its most divisive SUV design in years, and the timing could not be worse. The fifth-generation X5, internally known as the G65, debuted on June 30 with a face unlike anything the model has worn before. Within days, Chinese social media had turned the reveal into a running joke, with users comparing the front end to a pig’s snout and flooding Weibo and RedNote with memes.

I’ve been following BMW’s Neue Klasse rollout for a while now, and honestly, I didn’t expect the backlash to land this fast or this hard. The new X5 swaps the brand’s oversized kidney grille for a slimmer, upright, illuminated version, paired with X-shaped daytime running lights that fold the low beams, turn signals, and side lights into one housing. BMW calls it a tribute to the Home of X plant in Spartanburg and to the original 1999 E53 that started the whole X lineup. Chinese commenters called it something else entirely, and the pig jokes spread across platforms within 24 hours of the livestream ending.

This is one of those things I genuinely got excited about the moment I saw it, because car design rarely triggers this kind of instant global pile-on. The reaction wasn’t limited to China either. Over on BIMMERPOST, English-language forums were split down the middle, with one commenter joking the new nose looked like “Michael Jackson nostrils” while others defended the design as a necessary break from BMW’s recent grille controversies.

What nobody talked about is how closely this echoes the exact same meme cycle BMW went through a few years back, when its oversized kidney grilles on the 4 Series and iX became a punchline before some buyers actually grew to like them.

BMW X5 Design: What Actually Changed

The G65 rides on the same CLAR platform as the outgoing model, but almost nothing about the sheet metal carries over. BMW gave the SUV a taller, more upright nose; slim, angular headlamps; and vertical daytime running light elements that flow into the kidney grille through a dark, illuminated panel. The bumper uses a large gloss black section for contrast, with narrow vertical intakes at the outer edges, and the top-spec trims ride on 23-inch wheels for the first time in the model’s history.

Inside, the changes are just as dramatic. A 17.9-inch central touchscreen now dominates the dashboard as part of the new iDrive X system, and BMW removed the traditional rotary iDrive knob entirely. An optional 14.6-inch passenger screen, carried over from the 7 Series, sits alongside it. Door handles have also moved to a winglet-style unit near the pillars, a design touch that echoes the Ferrari Purosangue more than anything BMW has built before.

After looking into this more closely, I can tell you that BMW built in an escape hatch for buyers who hate the X-shaped lights. The housing can be switched to a simpler diagonal light bar through the iDrive menu, though the brand clearly believes the double-X look is the better option, and it’s the version shown in every piece of official marketing so far.

Why the Timing Hurts BMW X5 in China

This backlash isn’t happening in a vacuum. BMW delivered 625,527 BMW and MINI vehicles in China during 2025, a 12.5 percent drop year over year and the second straight year of decline in the brand’s largest market. The company has already walked back its full-year sales forecast once, and domestic rivals like Li Auto, Nio, and Aito keep refreshing their lineups faster and pricing more aggressively than BMW can match.

Sources suggest BMW is treating China differently enough that it plans a completely separate long-wheelbase X5 variant, reportedly codenamed G78, arriving in 2027 with advanced driver assistance tech co-developed with Momenta. Industry insiders hint that the G78 could get styling tweaks specific to the region, though nothing has been confirmed yet. If the current trajectory holds, it looks like BMW will need every one of those localization moves to work, because a design meme spreading through the exact market where sales are already sliding is not the kind of momentum any automaker wants heading into a launch year.

The more I looked at this, the more it became clear that the real story isn’t just about a funny meme. It’s about how much design risk a legacy brand can afford to take while it’s simultaneously trying to win back a market that has grown far more competitive and far less patient with polarizing styling. BMW went through something similar in 2021 when its oversized kidney grilles became an internet punchline, and the brand mostly rode it out. Whether the same playbook works twice, with sales already under pressure, is the part worth watching.

What Happens Next for BMW X5

Production for the standard-wheelbase X5 begins this fall at BMW’s Spartanburg plant in South Carolina, with the China-specific G78 expected to follow around January 2027, likely built at the Dadong plant in Shenyang. That facility is also expected to handle the fully electric iX5, which rumors suggest could carry the largest battery ever fitted to an electric BMW, reportedly up to 148 kWh.

Having watched BMW navigate design controversies before, this one feels different mainly because of scale. The pig comparisons are silly on their surface, but they’re spreading through the exact audience BMW most needs to win over right now. In my opinion, the actual production cars will matter far more than the meme cycle once buyers see the X5 in person and in real colors, away from studio lighting and camera angles picked specifically to exaggerate the new grille.

Whether the jokes fade the way BMW’s earlier grille backlash did, or whether this design ages differently, will likely become clear over the next few months as more X5 units reach showrooms across Europe and the United States. For now, the BMW X5 remains one of the most talked-about vehicle reveals of the year, for better or worse, and that alone tells you something about how much attention the brand still commands even when the reviews are mixed.