BMW M5 Touring review

At £113,405 OTR the new M5 Touring is actually priced aggressively for what it is. A standard Audi RS6 Avant, for easy comparison, is barely three grand more at the time of writing. So the BMW can stand a couple of options from the starting price. And option you probably will.

As standard it gets largely the same gear as the saloon, which means a pretty generous line-up, from the Bowers & Wilkins stereo to all the leather and cameras/ADAS you could reasonably expect. All the performance hardware is standard (so you don’t pay extra for, say, the M Adaptive suspension or M Sport diff), and the 20-inch front/21-inch rear alloys are handsome.

You can option most things singularly (carbon exterior package, M Driver’s Package, towbar etc), or just play with the balled-up packages. The Comfort Pack for the Touring, for instance, costs £1,600 (£200 less than the booted car) and consists of front and rear seat heaters and front seat cooling, roller blinds and the Travel and Comfort system.

The £18,900 Ultimate Pack - which is £600 cheaper than the saloon - gives you various comfort options, plus the ceramic brakes, M Carbon mirror caps, anthracite Alcantara headlining, seat ventilation and cooling and a panoramic glass sunroof. Because BMW couldn’t get a carbon roof big enough to fit.

There are also some excellent colours on offer for the M5 in general, from the usual silvers and blacks to sunshine yellow, a deep maroon/red - which looks amazing in bright sunshine - and dark green, again excellent. You can get custom colours from the Individual Programme, but the satin black version just looks a bit 2018 these days.

Ideal spec would be red or green with the gold calipers (you can option the M Compound brakes with blue, black or red calipers) and silver wheels. Looks classy but interesting. But there’s an excellent configurator to see just what you’d prefer.