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LARTE Design Paints BMW XM Lunar Lilac After Owners Demand Lilac Urus Look
German tuner LARTE Design has finished a BMW XM in Lunar Lilac, a lavender metallic matched across 17 dry-carbon body parts, after XM owners repeatedly sent the company photos of a lilac Lamborghini Urus SE and asked for the same treatment.
By Charlotte Redford · 4 min read
German tuning house LARTE Design has painted a BMW XM in Lunar Lilac, a lavender metallic with a blue undertone, and matched the colour across all 17 dry-carbon pieces of its existing body kit. The company says the shade was not its own idea. XM owners chose it.
In September, LARTE published a lilac Lamborghini Urus SE on its channels. According to the tuner, the post drew 146,000 views and was forwarded 1,164 times in private messages, roughly twenty times its comment count. Owners then began sending the image back with a single question: could the same be done on an XM? «Our clients chose this colour before we did,» said founder Alexej Janowski.
The XM has rarely been short of attention since it arrived in 2022. Then-CEO Oliver Zipse defended the design by arguing that forward-looking design always attracts controversy and that BMW expected the backlash. The factory paint list, however, never matched that attitude. At launch, buyers could choose Carbon Black, Sapphire Black, Dravit Grey or Mineral White, and the fifty BMW Individual shades added later included Urban Green, Petrol Mica, Anglesey Green and Sepia.
LARTE's argument is that dark paint conceals the XM's stacked surfaces, while a light colour puts them on display. In lilac, the company contends, the vented hood, flared arches and hexagonal exhaust tips read as deliberate choices rather than accidents of styling. The kit's wider arches will give critics of the XM's proportions further material to point at, and lilac is unlikely to convert anyone who already dislikes the car. But an owner who bought an XM precisely to be noticed is the natural customer for a pastel one, and the window may be closing: XM production is rumoured to end in 2028.
LARTE describes Lunar Lilac as a lavender metallic mixed deep enough that the carbon weave shows through the paint. The colour and the carbon parts were developed together, with the finish matched against cured carbon samples panel by panel so that the body and the add-on pieces do not look like two different materials. The shade runs unbroken from the hood, over the fender flares, to the rear diffuser. Forged 23-inch wheels finished in the same colour are offered as a separate option.
The body kit itself is not new. LARTE has offered it for the XM since 2023, and the lilac car uses the full exterior programme: 17 components in 100 per cent dry carbon with a Class-A surface finish. These include a vented carbon hood with integrated rainwater drainage, a two-piece front splitter, a carbon grille surround, side mouldings and sill covers, wheel-arch extensions, a rear diffuser with hexagonal carbon exhaust tips and additional integrated brake lights, a lower trunk-lid element, and an upper spoiler with aerodynamic fins.
Every part bolts to factory mounting points, so nothing has to be cut or drilled. LARTE says the kit remains compatible with the car's parking sensors and driver-assistance systems, and it fits the XM, XM Label and XM 50e.
LARTE has not published a price for the paint, the kit or the complete car. The company says it will send interested owners a personal configuration with renders, a timeline and pricing within 24 hours if they make contact through its design channel.
The tuner presents the build as part of a wider move towards personal colours, citing 2026 colour reports from PPG, Axalta and BASF that point away from functional shades. LARTE calls this approach «Customization Level 2», meaning the colour is developed for paint and carbon together rather than selected from a factory list.
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