Now that BMW has owned performance tuning company Alpina for a while, it is working on some of the details. One of those is shoring up its intellectual property, which CarBuzz recently uncovered with a slew of new Alpina brand trademark applications. However, lurking in a block of familiar trademark applications like B5, B7, and so on, is one we haven't seen before. Moreover, it seems to reference a BMW model that doesn't exist yet.
We've heard for quite some time that a BMW X8 is happening. Those rumors have been on and off for years, but now, we have found a BMW trademark for the XB8. Is this the first sign of a new flagship BMW crossover SUV? We think it could be.
Alpina Makes Grand Touring BMWs
German tuner Alpina is sort of like what AMG used to be to Mercedes-Benz. It took BMW models and made them different. Not hard core like BMW's own M (or Benz's AMG), but certainly faster than standard. It grew closer and closer to becoming a factory brand, even selling its new models at BMW dealers. BMW bought Alpina in 2022.
BMW's own model names have gotten hazy, but Alpina's structure has long remained strong. A number that corresponds to the BMW series, and a letter that means gas (B) or diesel (D). So a gas 3 Series by Alpina is the Alpina B3. B, in this case, is Benzin, which is German for gasoline.
When BMW started going all-in on SUVs like the X5, Alpina stuck to the same method but with the X. So its version of the X7 is called the XB7.
As such, the new trademark for the name XB8 would coorespond to an Alpina version of the BMW X8 with a gas engine. But BMW doesn't make an X8 SUV.
Wait, An Alpina BMW X8?
We haven't heard anything about plans for a BMW X8 SUV in a few years. We know that the company was originally planning one. Even after the company had confirmed the BMW XM, the X8 was said to still be in the pipeline.
BMW first got a trademark for the X8 name way back in 1998. It snapped up a number of badges that year, and a year later launched the BMW X5. Other SUVs followed, with the X7 on sale in early 2019 being the last of those original X names.
Source: EUIPO
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This article originally appeared on CarBuzz and is republished here with permission.
