BMW 5-Series M5 (05-10) - Review

The M5 comes with Electronic Damper Control (EDC) as standard and this system offers three suspension settings – Sport, Normal and Comfort. As you'd expect, Sport stiffens things up accordingly but in Comfort mode the M5 is as smooth and supple as a standard 5-Series M Sport model and makes a comfortable long distance machine. The front sports seats are wonderfully supportive and equally comfortable while an Active Seat bolster support system is available as an option. Space in the back is good in both the saloon and estate, although not quite as generous as in the Audi RS6.

The M5 offers identical practicality to the standard 5-Series model and is available as either a saloon or as a more versatile estate. The four-door car offers approximately 520 litres of boot space, which although good is slightly smaller than the Mercedes E63 AMG and Audi RS6 but the rear seats do split and fold down to allow you to carry larger items. The Touring has a useful load space and with no boot lip, loading and unloading heavy or awkward objects is easy. However compared to the Audi RS6 Avant the luggage area is around 70 litres smaller - and compared to the E63 AMG it lags behind by almost 200 litres. Thankfully folding down the rear seats is straightforward - although they don't sit totally flat, and this boosts space to 1,650 litres. The M5 also gets the head-up digital display as standard - this cleverly displays speed and other important driver information (such as gear selection and sat nav directions) on the windscreen so you don't have to take your eyes off the road.

The M5 is as well built and as stylish as the standard 5-Series it is based on. The slabby dash has a modern and clean design and thanks to the i-Drive control there are very few buttons to clutter up the central console. Build quality is impeccable and the driving position is superb - the sports seats adding to the cockpit-like cabin. One criticism would be that it's not different enough from the lesser models and lacks that feelgood factor, however there's no denying that it's a comfortable cabin. The M5 also gets an MDrive Manager that packages all the programmable settings together, so the single touch of a button sets the car up as required. This means the driver can select his preferred settings for power, gearbox, EDC and DSC modes, Head-up Display and the degree of Active Seat bolster support (if specified), via the iDrive menu. One-touch of the M Drive button on the steering wheel and the specific settings are selected.