There’s almost nothing more appealing to automotive enthusiasts than the taste of forbidden fruit. Whether it’s the Nissan GT-R finally arriving on American shores after decades of anticipation from rabid fans, or the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution doing the same for the rally set, sometimes all it takes to unlock an uptick in sales is to import a locked-away nameplate that’s built up a sterling reputation everywhere else.
Occasionally, the long-awaited launch is a lot more complicated. In the case of the BMW M5 Touring, a station-wagon body style that’s been offered in Europe since the 1990s, the news of its planned arrival in the United States for the 2025 model year — and in its most powerful iteration to date — translated into two distinct reactions from a ravenous public.
Firstly, the M5 wagon’s imminent appearance unleashed a torrent of pent-up emotion, especially from the hyper-online crowd that crowned long-roof exotica as their holy grail. Simultaneously, longtime M purists stared down the unholy pairing of their long-awaited lord and savior with the same 717-horsepower plug-in hybrid drivetrain that radically shifted the character of the M5 sedan.
Each point of view was further filtered through the very real reason almost every car company has backed away from wagons: no one is buying them. The rarest of all modern silhouettes, these once proud haulers have been entirely displaced by sport-utility vehicles and their crossover offspring.
Is BMW’s new M5 Touring a guaranteed cork popper set to soak up the fizz of thousands of frustrated fans finally able to lay hands on their dream ride? Or is it an easy-to-overlook anomaly in a landscape where high-performance families have long been trained to seek out one of the brand’s half-dozen SUVs wearing that same M badge? I recently spent a week with the wagon to find out.
Who Was This Made For?
At its core, the BMW M5 Touring is a dead ringer for the mechanical details of its sedan sibling. Depending on your point of view, this is either a good thing (717 horsepower, 738 lb-ft of torque, standard all-wheel drive, instant-on electric torque), or a bad thing (a thousand pounds of battery as ballast).
Just like the four-door, the M5 Touring straddles those two seemingly disparate worlds with a confidence that suggests the quiet-cruising crowd (eager to sample 25 miles of EV-only action) and the well-heeled hooligans (attracted by the roar of the BMW’s twin-turbo V8) can coexist under the same extended roof.
Should a Sports Sedan Weigh More Than an F-150?
In our test of the first hybrid BMW M5, one question was top of mind: What is lost and what is gained in the era of big batteries?When I first drove the M5 through the deep snow of a January blizzard , I made peace with its dual personality — it’s hard to hate on a car that still delivers eight-cylinder rumbles when you want them, and offers nearly 200 mph at the top end — but I wondered who, exactly, BMW’s customer might be. Is it the performance enthusiast willing to forgive a curb weight that approaches three tons? The eco-conscious commuter deeply into conspicuous consumption, and ready to drop six figures on a car with a modest (although still usable) battery range? Or M5 fans who’ve conveniently memory-holed the fact that the previous-generation version of the car was just as quick, and certainly much more nimble through the corners?
Courting SUV Agnostics
With its niche-within-a-niche status, the BMW M5 Touring narrows down the list of potential buyers considerably. For starters, to seek out a high-performance wagon like this one requires knowing it exists in the first place. Few if any future Touring buyers are likely to stumble across it in the showroom — this is a car that self-selects for superfans.
The most practical M5 iteration is also likely to draw from the small, yet stupendously wealthy pool of customers who previously parked the Mercedes-AMG E 63 or Audi RS 6 in their driveways, luxury wagons whose yearly sales figures combined couldn’t surpass the digits the BMW puts up on the scale. Since the Silver Star model is currently on hiatus, there’s a chance that the M5 Touring could snag defectors from its longtime competitor, but with its four-ringed rival still in the game, and Porsche delivering a fully-electric Taycan wagon (the Cross Turismo), the fight is a fierce one for open-minded SUV agnostics.
High-Powered Profile
Yet it’s impossible to deny the allure of the BMW M5 Touring’s wiles. My tester was finished in a deep “Anglesey” green that seemed to attract the attention of the long-roof cognoscenti no matter where I went. It’s unusual to be videoed from the adjacent lane when driving a family truckster, but that speaks to the drawing power of making a high-horsepower stand in a segment everyone else has abandoned.
As much as the Touring rebukes the SUV set, I couldn’t help but feel a kinship between the wagon’s bulk and the plodding dinosaurs that have largely chased its kin off of the playing field. The additional visual heft that the Touring lends the M5 is impossible to ignore, especially from the rear quarter angle, and behind the wheel those same plus-size proportions inform the driving experience in a way the sedan edition didn’t match.
This is a large car that leaves an equally audacious footprint wherever you go. BMW has in some ways replicated the SUV experience in a different package, an unexpected realization to come to after spending a week with the car.
Individuality Is Underrated
Several paths now diverge on the BMW order sheet. On one fork is the M5 Touring, a legitimately useful, exceptionally comfortable and frighteningly fast vehicle whose affinity for EV-only operation is more than just lip service. Another leads you to the X5 M, a generously-sized SUV that’s nearly as quick as the M5 Touring (within 0.2 seconds to 60 mph), seriously gifted under the hood (617 horsepower) and, most astonishingly, 200 pounds lighter than its wagon sibling. Finally, there’s the XM’s path , another plug-in hybrid that splits the difference between the X5’s sport-utility form factor and the M5 Touring’s battery-boosted drivetrain.
More is always better when it comes to choice, and BMW’s commitment to not forcing its buyers into a limited number of rigidly defined boxes is to be applauded. As to whether the M5 Touring is destined to be anything more than the coveted trophy of roundel-worshippers eager to get their hands on that which has for so many decades been denied to them will require a second model year to determine. (Though things are certainly looking promising .)
Even if my own feelings about the M5 wagon’s details are mixed, I’m glad it exists — especially in Anglesey green.
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