XM

Sardinia switches between two worlds within a few kilometres: village lanes where any engine feels like an intrusion, and ribbons of asphalt where a V8 feels like a blessing. The XM was built for exactly this alternation. You glide in electric mode past the houses of San Pantaleo on market-day Thursday, climb silently towards the castle at Castelsardo, then join the SS125 Orientale Sarda and the hybrid system wakes the twin-turbo for the rises and dips between Dorgali and Baunei.

That stretch, not by chance, features among our ten most beautiful roads in Sardinia to drive: wide corners, views over the Supramonte, traffic a rarity. With 653 hp combined and an electric reserve for village arrivals, the XM tackles them with a dual personality no purely combustion SUV can replicate.

Pulling away is surreal: well over two tonnes moving in total silence, with nothing but the whisper of tyres over granite. Then you press deep into the throttle, or select the sportiest mode, and the 4.4-litre V8 engages with a low vibration you feel through your shoulders before you hear it. The eight-speed gearbox manages the handover between electric and combustion power without a single jolt, and under full load the 0–100 km/h sprint is done in 4.3 seconds.

Active anti-roll bars keep the body flat through direction changes, while the suspension calibration surprises with how supple it becomes when you are running on electric power: it genuinely feels like two cars sharing one chassis. Even the brakes — regenerative in the first millimetres of pedal travel — encourage a fluid, unhurried style through the towns.

The XM is not a BMW elevated to M status: it is the first car designed from a blank sheet by the Motorsport division since the legendary M1 of 1978. You see it in a design that asks no one's permission — illuminated grille, sculpted flanks, matte Frozen Carbon Black paintwork — and you live it in the rear M Lounge, an enveloping bench crowned by a three-dimensional backlit headliner that turns the second row into a private salon.

It is the right object for those who want to stand apart even within their own category: among the luxury SUVs available to rent in Sardinia it is the one that turns the most heads, and within the LSM Car Luxury BMW fleet it represents the technological summit.