BMW M5 - long-term review

It was nicknamed The Emperor. The name emerged over time, initiated by its size and colour, bolstered by its almighty power, aloofness and a hint of smug self-satisfaction. Before that name settled, I had occasionally referred to it as Jabba, but that seemed too cruel. It moves well. However, driving it I often felt dominated. By the engineering complexity, by the driving environment, by its size. The G90 M5 is not an intimate car on any level.

Super saloons and estates used to be business expresses for those that wanted to speak softly and pack a punch. The Porsche Panamera still feels like that. The M5 feels like a car shaped by social media. That its main aim isn’t to drive well, but to stand out, be noticed, cause a fuss.

It did that very well. People adored it wherever it went, from bikers on the Isle of Man to kids in French villages. And I do still think that Isle of Man Green, distinctive without being garish, is absolutely the best colour to have. But no, the shape, the detailing is hardly gentlemanly.

And nor is the cabin. Orange leather was a massive mistake. Who on earth in BMW's colour and trim department signed that off? It shouldn’t have even been on the options list for me to take a punt on. People used to peer in through the windows and assume some sort of tinting was playing with their internal colour balance. Once in and looking at the dash, there wasn't too much on display. But the cockpit layout and design was austere and off-putting and then there were the doom-laden electronic start-up noises and heavy-handed graphics. Nothing about the M5 was welcoming or suggested I was about to have a great time. Instead it seemed intent on showing me how macho it was.

And then it crept meekly away on e-power. It was like hearing Mike Tyson talk. The silence just didn’t fit with everything the M5 had been trying to tell me up to that point. But I liked the electric, it was super smooth around town, but that was all. This is a hybrid that is primarily intended to enhance efficiency not performance. It has enough e-power to balance the weight gain, but that’s it - this G90 M5 is no faster than the old F90 and has a worse power to weight ratio (314bhp/tonne plays 299), because while it has gained 130-odd horsepower, it’s also gained 650kg.

Although provided you plug it in, it is notably more efficient. It just doesn’t have a great range because there’s only room for a 60-litre fuel tank. Call it 300 miles on continental hauls. Still, it is deeply fast and while the V8 roar isn’t as overt here as in an RS6, it still warms the cockles.

The weight and the size. Those are the two things that bothered me most at the start of my time with the M5. Over time the weight bothered me less, the size disturbed me more. 717bhp and £8,850 carbon ceramic brakes made the mass evaporate. Most of the time. But it was equally clear the M5 had been developed on smooth European roads. Over there, where it spent almost half its mileage, it was great. Confronted with our crazy paving, it had a fight on its hands. The only solution was to ramp up the chassis stiffness to give the damping a chance to hold everything together. It came across as tense, needed to bully the road, as it couldn’t flow with it.

Could barely fit down it, in fact. This was the bigger issue. The G90 has leapt up in size and with the passenger mirror scraping hedges while the offside wheel thumps cats eyes, it can’t give you options for line and trajectory through corners. Think of the gains in passenger and boot space though, right? The last M5 Touring was the E60 back in 2007. It was over 240mm shorter and 130mm narrower. It looks like a scale model in comparison and had a 500-litre boot that expanded to 1,650 litres with the seats folded. Figures for this one? 500 and 1,630 litres. I don’t think there’s any more passenger space either. I’m sure it’s safer, it’s definitely more refined, is loaded with far more kit and has to package that hybrid gubbins. But I also don’t believe BMW has tried that hard to keep its size down. I think status plays a part here.

But even by my usual standards, I did some great stuff with this Touring. Foremost among that was having IOM TT lap record holder Peter Hickman drive me around the 37.7-mile course, howling over the mountain, catching fast bikes, doing all the things a super estate should excel at. That was the M5 in its element. Shame it needed a one way road to show its ability. It’s played on track a fair few times, both as camera support car and seeing off the winter tyres in style with a massive skid through Hammerhead. Furthermore, BMW's understanding of traction and chassis balance still wallops Audi where it hurts - 4WD Sport mode is tremendous.

It got to play on several mountain passes across Switzerland, France, Austria and Italy, most notably the Stelvio for the 200th anniversary, took in great roads across the south of France and Wales, hauled bikes, a sit ski and roof box, even towed Jethro’s Citroen DS with aplomb. But far more of the time it was sat on autoroutes and autobahns consuming mileage. It did that with imperious ease, and special mention to BMW's light touch lane keep and distance control systems which remain the best out there. But it was too austere inside to be that calming or relaxing - it didn’t draw you into the experience of travelling, it felt as if you had to fight to get information out of it, that nothing operated logically or easily.

It’s always useful in these end-of-term reports to refer back to the little ‘why it’s here’ phrase. We write these at the start of our time with a car and they don’t change. So is the M5 headed in the right direction? That was the question I wanted to answer above all. The answer? I don’t think it is. But I don’t see a different solution for BMW. Along with everyone else it's being backed into a corner by regulations and tight profit margins. Hybrid seems to be the only way to go because at least it keeps the V8 alive while appeasing the authorities, so to try and keep buyers interested it doubles down on visual drama and equipment and screens and menus and apps, and hope that masks the cracks in driver engagement.

BMW's not alone here. Mercedes seems to have killed its super saloons stone dead (has anyone ever seen a hybrid C63 in the wild?) and Audi is delaying the inevitable for as long as possible. Thank god BMW has the guts to try to find a route through the maze. But while it looks bold, the M5 is not actually a brave piece of design. It’s fearful. There’s no radical engineering at work here, because a) it’s too expensive and would push the M5 into a different price bracket and b) when it has tried that before (think BMW i8) it has got its fingers burned. It might be the Emperor, but these are not new clothes.

So don’t expect BMW to backtrack or lurch into radicalism. It’s trying its best. Compared to what else is available out there that does a similar job, I’d have this over any super SUV, over the Panamera and - narrowly - the RS6. It’s well made and well priced. But I used to love the M5. I don’t love this one.