Already the new BMW M5 has been described by one online commenter on a CompleteCar.ie video review as “a fat, bloated, overweight, woke electric microwave, that’s an overly complex plastic fantastic.” Of course, he could have been talking about the presenter, but I honestly have never been described as a microwave before.
Equally, the M5 isn’t made of plastic - it’s mostly steel and aluminium as it happens, and this one, the M5 Touring, has a little more of both, plus some extra glass because of course Touring means estate. This is only the third M5 to get an estate version since 1984. The other two were the E34 model, introduced in 1988, and the V10-engined E61, introduced in 2003. Neither were what you’d call massive sellers. Only 891 E34 Tourings rolled out of BMW M’s Garching headquarters, while the E61, with that screaming V10 engine, found but a few more customers - 1,025 of those were made.
Will this, the G90 iteration of the M5 Touring, fare much better in sales terms? Well, it just might. BMW has been happy with the sales of its M3 Touring, which has been selling well in the main markets for the M5 - Germany, the US and the UK. As ever, we would be puzzled as to why you wouldn’t buy the more versatile estate model if given the opportunity, but motoring life takes all kinds. At least, if nothing else, the M5 Touring provides a valid reason (as if you needed one) not to buy the horrid BMW XM SUV, which shares its V8 engine and plug-in hybrid system.
A PHEV M5? Oh yes, if you missed the M5 saloon review, then you should know that this new M5 is going part electric. Again, it’s not hard to see why, as - perhaps surprisingly - BMW M buyers actually seem to like electric power. The best-selling M-badged car in the world right now is the i5 M60, which of course also comes as a Touring estate, and which gets from a standstill to 100km/h in a not dissimilar time to this new M5 (just 0.2 seconds slower as it happens). The M5 Touring features an 18.6kWh battery pack, which gives it a slightly shorter range on electric power than the saloon (falling by 2km to 67km), while the official - and highly unlikely fuel consumption figure rises by 0.3 litres/100km to 2.0 litres per 100km. Good luck ever seeing that number on the big, digital dashboard.
How much is the BMW M5 Touring in Ireland?
Here’s where the new M5 really scores in a specifically Irish context. The shift to PHEV power and the low official CO2 figure of 40g/km means that the M5 Touring sheds Euros just as fast as it gains pounds (it’s a very heavy car). In fact, at €139,495 it’s the guts of €60,000 cheaper than the old petrol-only M5 saloon, and €16,000 cheaper than the current M3 Touring. As standard you get mixed 20/21-inch alloy wheels (the bigger ones are on the back), adaptive suspension, an M-specific body, uprated brakes, a light-up grille, switchable four-wheel drive, active steering with rear-axle steer, forward collision alert, lane-keeping steering (although adaptive cruise is on the options list), a head-up display, leather upholstery, bucket front seats, a Bowers + Wilkins sound system and augmented-reality navigation.
A look inside the BMW M5 Touring
As with the M5 Saloon, the M5 Touring’s interior is basically lifted from the regular 5 Series or i5 saloon and given a gentle sprinkling of M-department magic dust. There is a bright red starter button, a matching red 12-o’clock marker at the apex of the flat-bottomed steering wheel, paddle shifters behind that wheel finished in carbon fibre, and the now-familiar M1 and M2 memory buttons that allow you to save settings for the M5 Touring’s multifarious and complicated driving modes.
There is also a pair of high-backed bucket seats, swathed in Merino leather, which get an illuminated M5 badge in the backrest, and which are among the best we’ve ever parked our butts on.
The back seats don’t get any extra space compared to the M5 Saloon, but there is a little more light and airiness around rear-seat passengers’ heads thanks to the extended roof and the extra glass. Legroom and headroom are enough that four adults can easily get comfortable, and the large fold-down armrest in the back helps to make long journeys that bit easier. Don’t bother trying to fit a third person in the back, though - they’re not really going to fit, unless they’re very small indeed (and then they’re going to need a bulky child seat).
Behind those seats is the M5 Touring’s reason for existence - its boot. The M5 Touring is no longer than the M5 Saloon overall, but obviously the rear bodywork and roof have been extended to turn it into an estate. There are some neat styling tricks, such as the line on the top of the rear wheelarch being extended backwards to smooth out the heft of the extra body.
Behind the hatch - which is electric, but which sadly lacks the separate opening glass so familiar from previous 5 Series Tourings - there’s a large, flat-floored boot. Well, actually not all that large. In fact, at 500 litres capacity it’s some 70 litres down on the boot volume of the i5 M60 and only the same size as that of the physically smaller, mechanically simpler, M3 Touring.
That has to count as a disappointment, even if it’s a more useful space than the M5 Saloon’s meagre 466-litre boot, and with the three-way split rear seats (40:20:40 formation) the boot does expand to 1,630 litres if you’re not carrying anyone in the back. The floor, at that point, isn’t completely flat, but there’s not too steep a slope up to the backs of the front seats.
There’s also an optional electric folding towbar, and the M5 Touring can pull up to 2,000kg of braked load.
The BMW M5 Touring’s on-board technology
The M5 Touring, of course, gets the same big, wide, curved digital screen as the M5 Saloon. Actually, it’s two screens in one mount - a 12.3-inch instrument panel and a 14.9-inch infotainment touchscreen, backed up by the familiar iDrive click wheel on the centre console.
To say the M5 Touring is tech-laden is a vast understatement. It’s more like a mobile branch of DID Electrical. You can use the big central screen as a video game console with your connected phone as a controller for example. There’s built-in Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connections, obviously, but also native Amazon Alexa for voice control (on top of BMW’s own Intelligent Personal Assistant voice control system).
There are M-specific displays for both screens, and an incredibly complex set of driving modes. There are lots and lots of individual choices, from suspension stiffness to steering weight to gearshift ferocity to augmented engine sounds and plenty more. Thankfully, you can store two sets of setups on the M1 and M2 memory buttons on the steering wheel, allowing you to flick easily between, say, a lo-fi hybrid setup for everyday driving and a ferocious group of settings for when you’re on a favourite stretch of road.
Elsewhere, there is the interactive LED light bar, with its slightly tacky crystalline surface that stretches across the dash, and which can flash different colours for warning or information. It also bathes the cabin with the traditional BMW M red, purple and blue colours when you sit in, which is a nice touch.
The head-up display is excellent, rich with information but not overloaded, while the augmented reality navigation, which overlays directional arrows onto a live picture taken from the forward-facing camera in the windscreen, is a godsend on unfamiliar roads.
Driving the BMW M5 Touring
One of the recurring issues around this generation of BMW M5 is its weight, hence the fat, bloated, overweight comment quoted above (unless he really was talking about me...). It’s true, the M5 is seriously heavy, and the M5 Touring is heavier again, adding 40kg to the Saloon for a total of 2,550kg. Yikes.
Of course, a sizeable chunk of that weight - the battery - is mounted low down and between the wheels, so it’s not quite the detriment to handling that you might expect. BMW’s engineers will, partially, and over a large dinner, admit that the M5 Touring is a touch softer in its suspension than the M5 Saloon. It’s hard to divine that difference on the road, without hopping from one directly to the other, but yes, the M5 Touring certainly feels a fraction more languid.
That’s not a criticism. In fact, if anything, it amplifies the brilliant everyday-useable nature of the M5 Touring, as it’s a seriously comfortable car. With everything set to softly-softly, the M5 Touring pads around like a contented panther, soaking up any poor road surfaces we could find (few around Munich as it happens) and proving to be exceptionally refined.
Press the M2 button to call up, as we had pre-set, more focused driving settings, and that panther turns feral. While the M5 Touring is slower than the M5 Saloon, by a tenth of a second, to reach 100km/h, and 0.6 seconds slower than the old V8-only M5, the M5 Touring is unsurprisingly savagely fast. Peaks of 727hp and 1,000Nm of torque will do that, and if the 0-100km/h time is faintly disappointing, then go and try the in-gear acceleration. I doubt many other non-supercars would be anywhere near the M5 Touring in terms of 80-120km/h acceleration.
Yet, from behind the wheel, it all feels measured. While 727hp sounds like a ludicrous power output, you quickly re-set your brain, while the four-wheel drive and the Active M differential in the back (which sends power individually to each rear wheel) parcel all that oomph out in manageable chunks. After a while, you start to wonder why every car doesn’t have 1990s Formula One power levels... The only slight downsides are that the eight-speed automatic gearbox could do with shifting slightly faster when you’re pressing on, and that on a part throttle, it’s easy to induce an uncomfortable driveline-slap effect.
The four-wheel drive is rear-biased, of course, and there is a setting which sends all the power to the rear wheels, but that’s arguably best saved for a racetrack. The steering manages to feel entirely natural and has terrific feel and feedback by modern standards (not by the standards of the 1993 E34 M5 Touring we drove on the same day, but such is 21st century motoring). It gives you great confidence to place this big, hefty car even on narrow, winding roads and if the suspension is softer, it still does an incredibly good job of controlling all the mass and putting it in the right position when you need it.
Only under hard braking, and when trying to tackle a sharp direction change, will you feel the tonnage of the M5 Touring. That’s maybe a shame, especially if you’ve felt the telepathic responses of the old M5 CS, but this M5 Touring is a different beast, content to leave the serious apex-carving up to the M2 and M4 coupes, while it concentrates on being a staggeringly fast, ludicrously capable vehicle. It’s truly multi-role, all-weather capable, and able to travel long distances to deliver a devastating punch.
How economical is the BMW M5 Touring?
BMW quotes an official 2.0 litres per 100km for the M5 Touring, which sounds about as likely as a convicted criminal running for public office (oh, wait...). That’s better than 140mpg, and you’d have to be using the big battery and electric motor to its maximum potential to get anywhere near that.
With an official 67km electric range (50km more like it in the real world) you could potentially do that, but the battery can only be charged on 7.4kW AC power, which means you won’t be able to do any quick top-ups on a longer run. On a depleted traction battery, BMW quotes 10.9 litres per 100km, and frankly it’s not hard to do worse than that.
How safe is the BMW M5?
The 5 Series has been assessed by Euro NCAP and returned a full five-star rating, with scores of 89 per cent for adult occupant protection, 85 per cent for child occupants, 86 per cent for vulnerable road users and 78 per cent for active safety systems. Obviously the M5’s copious high-performance add-ons, including optional carbon-ceramic brakes, might give you more of a safety margin when tackling tricky roads, but equally obviously the potent power means you might get into trouble that bit more quickly if you’re not being sensible.
The reasons you'd buy a BMW M5
The M5 Touring is, in many ways, the ultimate version of the new M5. Because it’s a more practical machine (even if, ultimately, it’s not all that much more practical) it takes the focus off the ultimate performance of the car, and allows the M5 to lean into its more luxurious, GT-like character, leaving the screaming and shouting to the smaller, lighter M models. In that role, it’s close to peerless, not least because you can slink about noiselessly on electric power when you fancy. This is a car of staggering speed, serious poise and just because it’s an estate, we love it a little bit more.
Ask us anything about the BMW M5
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