BMW 5 Series (2017-2024) review

Speccing one won’t be the work of a moment, but BMW does at least group options together in prosaically named packs, such as Comfort (better seats, heated wheel), Technology (head-up display, WiFi, big stereo), Entertainment (TVs in the back) and Visibility (laser lights up front). Previously, if you wanted to turn your donut-tyred eco-saloon into a mock-M5 at the touch of a button (or the click of a mouse), then the M Sport Edition was the default option priced at around £4,500 more than a regular M Sport. But at the time of writing it looks as though the M Sport Edition has fallen victim to the global chip shortage that’s playing havoc with the industry, so who knows when it’ll return. The M Sport is £3,500 more than the base SE, but 75 per cent of Fives in the UK will be M Sports anyway…

Fives are delightful things to own and run in our experience. BMW has a knack for extracting strong economy figures out of muscular engines, too, so while the figures associated with the plug-in hybrids live outside the real world (triple-figure-mpg is never gonna happen) the rest of the range ought to deliver on its promises. Which for the 520d (that lots of people will default to) means mid-50s mpg and around 130g/km of CO2. For the mighty M550i, you can respectively half and double those figures.