We rumble out of Munich heading north, six or seven brand new M5s running nose to tail. The Frozen Black car ahead has a racer’s stance, wide at the base like a pyramid, wheels pressed out to each corner. Another Speed Yellow M5 lurks in our rearview mirror like it might pounce. The bright pinstripe of light that illuminates the outline of the grille means you spot a new M5 long before you’ve worked out what it is, or how fast it’s coming at you.
Out of context, perhaps on a plinth beneath show stand lights or on a showroom floor, the seventh-generation M5 isn’t exactly effortlessly good-looking. The styling is busy, some of the proportions a bit off, the lights front and rear a touch derivative. But put this thing in the real world, on a flowing autobahn amongst everyday traffic, and it looks as potent as anything with four doors ever did.
With this car BMW M has broken with 40 years of tradition in a number of ways. This is the first M5 to have wider rear arches than the standard 5 Series upon which it’s based, and that’s where that stance, that attitude, comes from. But what’s really changed is the powertrain. This isn’t the first hybrid M-car, but it is the first to have both an M5 badge on its rump and a hybrid powertrain stuffed into it. The twin-turbocharged, 4.4-litre V8 that’s served in M5s since the 2011 F10 remains, but here it’s backed up by a substantial electric motor and battery pack. The result is 717bhp and 737lb ft of torque, almost a hundred horsepower and close to two hundred pound-foot more than any M5 before it.
