2025 BMW M5 Touring

The 727 hp hybrid wagon that gets better the harder you drive it

The BMW M5 Touring is one of those cars that almost feels too absurd to exist. A station wagon with a 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8, plug-in hybrid technology, 727 hp, 1,000 Nm of torque, all-wheel drive, a usable electric range, a boot large enough for family life and enough performance to make your driving licence feel permanently endangered. On paper, it sounds like the ultimate everything-car. And in many ways, it is.

But this new M5 Touring is also a complicated car. Not because it is difficult to understand, but because it represents a new kind of M car. Bigger, heavier, more digital, more electrified and far more powerful than ever before.

A rare return: the third M5 Touring in history

The new M5 Touring is only the third M5 wagon BMW M has ever built. The first arrived with the E34 generation in the early 1990s, the second was the V10-powered E61, and now the G99 brings the Touring body style back for a new era. BMW itself confirms this is the third generation of the M5 Touring and that it is built at the brand’s Dingolfing plant.

Because no matter how much SUVs dominate the world, there is still something deeply cool about a fast estate. Lower than an SUV, more elegant than a crossover and infinitely more interesting than yet another performance family tank pretending to be dynamic.

Powertrain: V8, electricity and too much of everything

Under the bonnet sits BMW’s M Hybrid system, combining a high-performance M TwinPower Turbo V8 with an electric motor. The result is a system output of 535 kW or 727 hp, with 1,000 Nm of torque distributed through M xDrive.

The car accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.6 seconds and from 0 to 200 km/h in 11.1 seconds, which is almost difficult to process when you remember this is a large family wagon weighing around 2,550 kg. BMW lists the Touring at 5,096 mm long, 1,970 mm wide with a 3,006 mm wheelbase, so this is not exactly a compact M car.

Electric range: the quiet side of the beast

For the first time, the M5 is a plug-in hybrid. That still feels strange to say. BMW lists a usable battery capacity of 18.6 kWh, allowing a WLTP electric range of 61 to 67 km, with electric driving possible up to 140 km/h. AC charging is supported at up to 11 kW.

You can leave home in silence, drive through town without waking the neighbours and do plenty of short trips without immediately involving the V8. That dual character is fascinating. One moment it behaves like a quiet executive wagon, the next it becomes one of the most excessive performance cars BMW has ever built.

Driving experience: the harder you drive it, the better it gets

The strangest thing about the M5 Touring is this: the harder you drive it, the better it becomes. At normal speeds, it can feel slightly too serious. The suspension remains firm, the car is wide, heavy and expensive, and you are always aware that there is a lot of machine around you.

But once you start driving it properly, things begin to make sense. The powertrain wakes up, the chassis tightens, the front end becomes more alert, the rear starts helping and the whole car suddenly shrinks around you.

Push harder and the M5 Touring hides its mass better than it has any right to. It still weighs about as much as a small building, but the way BMW M has managed the chassis, power delivery and all-wheel-drive system is deeply impressive. The car gets sharper as your confidence grows.

2WD mode: brilliant, but too extreme in setup

The M5 Touring comes with M xDrive, offering different drive modes including 4WD, 4WD Sport and a rear-wheel-drive 2WD mode. But here is the frustrating part: 2WD mode is only available with traction control fully switched off.

Because the car would be far more playful and more dynamic with a usable rear-wheel-drive mode that still keeps some level of safety net. In 4WD and 4WD Sport, there is so much grip and so much front-end workload that understeer can appear when you really push the car. The tyres feel it too.

In 2WD, with everything off, the M5 Touring becomes a beast. A very serious beast. One that demands respect and space. It is fun, yes, but it is also not something most owners will use often on the road.

Speed sensation: almost too competent

One of the biggest issues with the M5 Touring is not that it lacks performance. It is that it hides speed too well. There is almost no real speed sensation until you look down and realise you are already travelling far faster than expected.

The car is so stable, so insulated and so brutally capable that normal road speeds feel almost meaningless. That is impressive engineering. But it is also dangerous. Because before you know it, your driving licence is in trouble.

Comfort and daily use: sublime, but not perfect

It is quiet when needed, spacious enough for family life, electrically usable over shorter distances and massively capable on long journeys. The boot offers 500 litres of luggage space, expanding to 1,630 litres with the rear seats folded.

But it is not perfect. The suspension remains firm, even when you are not in the mood. It never fully becomes soft or luxurious in the way older big BMWs sometimes could. And that leads to one of our biggest personal frustrations: we miss some of the luxury touches from the previous generation. No soft-close doors, no fully leather dashboard, a (panoramic) roof that does not open.

Interior: modern M, but some details disappoint

Inside, the M5 Touring feels like a modern BMW M product. The driving position is excellent, the M seats hold you properly, the curved display dominates the dashboard and the red M1 and M2 buttons remain some of the best shortcuts in the business.

But again, not everything is perfect. The tiny gear selector is a disappointment. In a car like this, we still want a proper central gear lever. Not because it changes the technical function of the car, but because it changes the interaction. Manual shifting is now only really satisfying through the paddles, and we miss the more mechanical feeling of a proper shifter in the centre console.

Then there is the gloss black trim. Everywhere. If you enjoy washing your car every week and wiping fingerprints every day, the M5 Touring might be perfect for you. Otherwise, it is one of those modern interior trends we would gladly see disappear.

Design: aggressive, wide and impossible to ignore

Visually, the M5 Touring is not subtle. The old M5 formula was often about understated violence. A serious sedan or wagon that only revealed its true character to those who knew what to look for. This one is different.

It is wide, muscular, angular and clearly more extroverted. Whether that is good or bad depends on your taste, but as a Touring, the design works better than on the sedan. The long roofline balances the heavy rear sections, and the overall stance gives it real presence.

AutoNext Verdict

It is too heavy, it is too expensive, it misses some luxury details we genuinely liked in previous generations. And it could be even better with a more usable rear-wheel-drive mode. But still.

What a machine. The harder you drive it, the more it starts to make sense. That is its magic. It feels slightly overbuilt, slightly absurd and slightly too much for everyday life but that is also exactly why it is so fascinating.

This is not the perfect M5. But it is still an über-fast, wildly capable, deeply impressive all-rounder. And as a Touring, it becomes even cooler.