The sodden A- and B-roads of Snowdonia aren’t ideal for really exercising such a powerful, large car as this. It feels wide, because it is (more than 70mm wider than the standard-series G90-gen 5 Series across the front axle) but it’s surprisingly dextrous-riding, supple and composed over complex surfaces, and feels fully grown up in the linearity and intuitive precision with which it steers from corner to corner.
Could this be a more chilled-out, longer-legged M5 than the last one, something of a return to the dynamic recipe of, say, the famous E39 ’bahnstormer?
“We are not blind to the failings of our own cars,” Hacker says. “With the old F10 M5 Competition, we probably went a little too far with the aggressiveness of the execution, and some of our customers told us that. This time, we simply had to remember that the M5 is not a track car. It’s a working vehicle – a tool for business and everyday life, in some cases – and suitability to fast road use is what matters most for it.”
That was the reason, Dirk says, they opted for progressive-rate coils for the car’s suspension. M division doesn’t use air springs, which bring high-frequency friction problems, but knew that a sufficiently firm coil spring would leave a car as heavy as the M5 short on wheel travel. As it is, the M5’s progressive-rate coils deliver 100mm of travel for the suspension. That allows it to be surprisingly supple-riding over bumps, gives the car’s dampers room to work, and also keeps the wheels on the ground when the body is deflected upwards.
Snowdonia has some of the most testing roads this tester knows for vertical body control. The M5 Touring just deals with them, and only feels heavy in those telltale split seconds when its weight is shifting over its rear axle. The super-accessible muscle of its electrically boosted acceleration makes it pick up pace without so much as a dropped ratio. And the assurance of its traction and grip level, and carefully metered accuracy of its steering and body control, make its size and bulk seem less problematic than you might think, although neither disappears entirely.