First of all I’d like to thank you all for all your compliments, criticisms, and suggestions. I’d address each of you individually but that’d make this already long post even longer.

I chose my X for purchase and put it together that it would be representative of myself. I’m a young urban guy, living in the armpit of NYC. And I’m the type of guy that values, quality and exclusivity. I enjoy the fact that the car wash and parking lot attendants marvel over the rarity of my manual X (I’m sure other manual X driver’s can attest to this as well).

I don’t really care that some of you don’t like my aero kit. I see the 4.6/4.8 aero kit on at least every 4th X I see here in NYC. I’ve seen my Aero kit on an X less than 6x’s since I bought my X a year ago. I like the fact that the kit gives the X “shoulders”. My “getto” deep-dish chrome with the Brembo cross-drilled rotors flesh out the wheel wells nicely. They’re not 24’s but then they’re not 17’s either.

When I 1st got the X, I had temp tags for 45 days. I got my Euro Plates only days after I got my X. So I had authentic German plates front and back with a barely visible temp tag in the window. This truck was made to have euro plates on it and my X looked great with them. When I see Essam and others with the wide plates, it looks correct. So I get that two plates seems weird, but I think US plates look weird on the X. So I kept both.

All the elements of modification you see before you combine to suggest at the very least, a limited edition model imported from Europe and unavailable in the US. Richie Rich that was the look I was going for and thanks for the compliment. The rebadge is because I don’t want my X to be a model that exists. Or at least not one that is available here in the US. That way no one can say they have one. A big engine poseur maybe, but the truth is I haven’t finished modding and I’ve been researching forced induction solutions. One of which offers 100+hp extra for less than $7000. So maybe it will soon live up to its big engine look.

The point is screw the cookie cutter look. The point of personalization is to have your car NOT look like anyone else’s. Case in point Rasta’s dearly departed X, Shanequa. I passed Rasta on a busy 6 lane street and saw his X for all of 3 seconds. I’d never seen him before in person but I sure knew that X from these posts and I told the person I was riding with his exact screenname. And I knew who he was upon 1st sight because his X was exclusive. I hit Rasta up on the pm and he said he’d seen me as well but I hadn’t posted pics at the time so he didn’t know who I was. And Chilli says he thinks he’s seen me before as well.

So I encourage you to be individuals. And don’t be afraid of what others will say even if you DO look ridiculous with an E53 X5 pickup truck with 26” chrome spinners, flip-up doors and headlights from an X6. But screw all the common wheel choices. And all the common ground effects. And the common looks. If there’s a good chance that you will see an X5 that looks identical to yours at least physically, you, my friend, need to get to modding. Here’s my Avatar (taken 2 weeks after I got my X) and below that is the real inspiration behind my X's transformation.

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In living life, the balance of responsible effort and dependence upon divine enablement must be maintained vigilantly.

2001 X5 3.0 manual with factory widebody kit