By John Simister
Specifications
Price:
£67 075 (about R944 000).
Engine:
4999cc, V10, 40 valves, 375kW at 7750rpm, 520Nm at 6100rpm.
Transmission:
Seven-speed sequential gearbox, rear-wheel drive.
Performance:
250km/h (limited), 0-100km/h in 4.8sec, 15.1 litres/100km average fuel consumption.
The BMW M5 Touring is a practical station wagon with a 375kW V10 engine. It's an automotive oxymoron, a sense/sensibility incongruity which calls to mind those Volvo 850 estate cars that raced in the British Touring Car championship in the early 1990's with cardboard cut-out Labradors in the back.
Maybe the incongruity helps to justify the M5 Touring's existence; carrying two people at huge speeds in, say, a Ferrari 599, can seem slightly selfish.
But to do the same speeds with five people and/or a cargo, maybe plus hounds, seems somehow easier to justify because there's greater benefit from the time saved.
Besides, thrills are good. They keep us young and interested in life, as long as they are enacted with skill and judgment. Used properly, fast cars aren't dangerous. It's the misuse of them that can be.
Nevertheless, some of you readers might find the speed part hard to take. Each to his/her own, I say.
But even the most fervent supporter of tougher speed limits must concede that there's something beguiling about a station wagon able to scorch from a standstill to 100km/h in 4.8sec and not let up until it reaches its electronically-limited 250km/h, even if that potential is seldom aired.
Without the limiter it could reach 320km/h, an extraordinary notion for a station wagon.
The M5 Touring isn't the only V10-engined estate car, by the way. Audi has an S6 Avant, which uses a version of the engine from its Volkswagen group stablemate, the Lamborghini Gallardo.
But the S6 lacks the M5's hard core, a lack which a future RS6 might address. That said, this M5 is a softer animal than the first examples of the current V10-engined breed.
We first tried a V10-engined M5 sedan in September 2004. The engine was a truly extraordinary thing, happy to spin up to 8250rpm, sounding like a previous-generation Formula 1 car, its 373kW the result of pressing a switch to liven it up from the start-up default setting of 300kW (a gimmick, I feel).
Even ambling along a crowded street was an occasion, the exhaust barking savagely each time the sequential-shift transmission changed down to the accompaniment of an automatic, progress-smoothing accelerator blip to speed the engine up for the lower gear.
That gearbox, however, wasn't quite so good. It was a seven-speed sequential manual gearbox (SMG) with paddle-shifters on the steering wheel and a clunky automatic mode, and you had to try quite hard to keep the shifts smooth even in the slowest of the six selectable gearshift speeds.
And the difference between each of the six shift-speed settings was so incremental as to seem almost pointless.
Wishing for a manual
You could live with it, though, while possibly wishing for a proper manual. That wish could not be satisfied, however, because the gearbox was designed specifically as an SMG, rather than being a manual gearbox with electro-hydrualic actuators in place of a gear lever, as are most such units.
Besides, seven gears are too many for a normal gearshift pattern and this gearbox is designed with the gears that take the biggest loads positioned in the casing's strongest places rather than in a normal sequence.
If it was controlled by a gear lever, the shift pattern would thus be second, fourth, sixth, seventh, fifth, third, reverse, first. So, no manual.
But something has changed between that early M5 V10 and this Touring. Perhaps in response to criticisms of jerkiness, the programming of the gearshift speeds has been altered.
All the shifts, in all six modes, are slower, which is no doubt kinder to the gearbox and better for long-term durability.
It's easier to drive smoothly now, but it takes away some of the M5's mechanically-explosive edge. What was needed was to increase the differences between the modes, so that the fastest one stayed as hyper-alert as it used to be.
Are you feeling brave?
There's still the "launch control" function if you're feeling brave, though. It works like this. Switch off all traction and stability aids. Select first gear by pushing the central spring-loaded lever forward, and hold it there.
Floor the accelerator, which will take the revs up to 5000 and hold them there.
Then release the lever and you'll get that 4.8sec, 0-100km/h time, accompanied by wheelspin, tyre smoke and an automated sequence of optimally-timed gearshifts so violent you'll never dare try it again.
And if you were using your Touring in its cargo-carrying role, the cargo would by now surely be smashed to pulp.
Sweeping, open roads are the M5 Touring's optimum playground, although the seven gears make it a very relaxed motorway cruiser if you can restrain your right foot (the 250km/h maximum is achievable in fifth, incidentally).
The estate-car part of the looks trumps the M5 part in visual impact, so despite its deep-centre wheels and quadruple exhaust pipes it creates a stealthy, non-confrontational impression.
Drive discreetly
Three firmness settings for the adaptive dampers allow a remarkably supple ride for something so driver-delighting, too. Drive discreetly and no passenger would ever suspect the potential for fireworks unless s/he has an ear for the V10's unusual harmonic bark.
But when there's no-one around and you're in touch with your co-ordinated, toned, thrill-seeking side, this practical estate car can morph into something akin to a supercar.
It will be in the fastest shift-speed setting, with the firmest suspension and the DSC traction/stability control set to the M5-specific M Dynamic mode - a degree of dynamic freedom above that offered by the DTC mode in other BMWs, which already loosens the strictures of the system's default start-up setting.
The safety reins are still there, but you can have more fun before they pull. Or you can turn the DSC off completely, but there's no point in doing that on the road.
Enter the automotive twilight zone
There's even an M Drive button on the steering wheel which can be programmed with your preferred settings, so you can use that to trigger your M5's personality transformation in one go.
That'll take you into a a surreal world where the engine sings in its sweet zone beyond 5000rpm and you feel
a steering crispness, a handling balance and a reserve of grip that'll make you think you're driving a track-day special disguised in a station wagon body, cosseted in soft leather all the while.
But there's no need to wake up from the dream, because it's real. Such pace and ability might be overkill for the reality of our congested, bottlenecked, strait-jacketed roads, but that has always been the case with fast cars that excite the heart.
At least the BMW M5 Touring is useful, too. Meet the ultimate multi-purpose vehicle. - The Independent, London
- There are no plans to bring the M5 Touring to South Africa. Pity.
The rivals
Audi RS4 Avant:
£51 825
(R730 000)
Another estate version of a very powerful saloon, this time with a 312kW, high-revving V8 and all-wheel drive. Smaller than an M5, manual gearbox, one of best Audis ever.
Chrysler 300C Touring SRT-8:
£40 990
(R577000)
The 300C is the best car Chrysler makes, and this high-waisted, menacing-looking estate version has a 315kW, 6.1-litre V8. Fast, effortless, entertaining.
Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG Estate:
£69 085
(R972 000)
Expensive next to rivals, but AMG's 6.2-litre, 380kW V8 is less frantic than the M5's engine and even mightier. Seven-speed transmission is a normal auto.