BMW M5 Touring | Alps Attack

24 March 2026 Redazione News, Stories, Tested

Beware of those trying to convince you whether the new M5 Touring is better or worse than the RS6 Avant. The real comparison should be made within the family, because we haven’t had an M5 Touring for 20 years, and the last one was powered by a V10 that’s hard to forget. Now we have two turbos, all-wheel drive and even a hybrid unit under the hood, for an extra 500 kg. Here’s the deal: it will either be a disaster, or a masterpiece. We left compromises at home and set off for one of the most outrageous places on the planet. There was no alternative. This time, the mission is serious.

Words Alessandro Marrone / Photos Bruno Serra

France. I know, some will get cramps from all the finger-pointing. These aren’t exactly the Alps, this car weighs as much as a small apartment and everything feels more filtered than before. But is that really the case? Or is it time to question whether our assumptions have become as outdated and stale as that summer hit that’s finally been forgotten by season’s end?

To be completely honest, I couldn’t care less about what people think, let alone start off biased when I have one of the most desired and at the same time unexpected cars of the past fifteen years at my disposal. The M5 is an event, that much is certain. The M5 Touring is something beyond that, almost as if it shakes off the idea that the world of large high-performance cars was heading down a dark and lonely dead end. No, the M5 Touring is back shortly after the exceptional M3 Touring, echoing what was done in the past when the landscape was truly different from today, and when the constant fear of facing the end of an era lived only in our worst nightmares.

Its size and specific output immediately put it face to face with what has so far been the undisputed queen of the segment: the RS6 Avant. Comparisons are inevitable, both in terms of mechanical architecture and driving dynamics, since these modern M cars now also drive all four wheels. But I don’t think that’s the whole point. Sure, if you’ve got a piggy bank ready to burst and need a spacious practical car that can also get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, your choice will fall between the M5 Touring and the RS6 Avant — unless you decide to go for a few extra centimeters of ground clearance and consider one of the many (too many) SUVs on the market. But I believe the most important comparison for the new M5 — both Touring and the more traditional four-door sedan — is with itself. Not so much with the generation it replaces, but with those legendary ones that turned this letter and number into a universal icon in the world of cars that truly matter.

The advantage of reaching these places once the season is over is the near certainty of having them all to yourself. A seemingly solitary planet in a corner of the world your eyes simply cannot get used to. After passing Castellane and Rougon, the only car we encounter over the next kilometers is an old Renault 5 carrying a shepherd and his faithful border collie. The road, the unexpectedly sunlit orange meadows of late November, and a blue sky beyond all expectations is the only company we’ll have for today’s adventure. We like to call it Alps Attack, but it’s just an excuse — like any other — to make sure that at the end of the season, when unstable weather discourages most, you pick a destination and truly live it, celebrating what is not just a car, but a tool designed to turn fuel into pure emotion.

The M5 now reaches its seventh generation, and just like in 2011 with the F10 series, it decides there’s only one way to keep raising the performance bar: shake everything up. Thankfully, the engine remains a V8, still twin-turbocharged, but now paired with a 145 kW (197 hp) electric unit integrated into the M Steptronic transmission. It’s a rechargeable engine — a plug-in hybrid — meaning you don’t just recover energy while driving, but can also charge it from the same outlet as your iPhone. In simple terms, the most effective way to always have the M5’s full power at your disposal. The leap in output is astonishing: 727 horsepower versus the 600 of the previous “traditional” M5. Torque is equally stratospheric, with 1,000 Nm available from just 1,800 rpm. But we’ll get to that later, among the curves of the Verdon.

The Touring — ça va sans dire — is the wagon version of the three-box sedan, and as tradition dictates, it draws you in not just with the sportier look given by its rear end, but because it suggests you won’t need any other car. And that M badge implies you won’t even miss a proper supercar. Is that really true? To find out, you don’t rely on press releases, nor get lost in labyrinthine spec sheets listing numbers like bingo calls. You need just one thing, the same thing every BMW worthy of the M badge has always known how to deliver over the decades.

My mind wanders, pulling images from previous visits to this incredible place. Time to turn left for the Route des Crêtes. Hard on the brake, a quick tap on the left paddle — helpfully finished in red rubber on the back — and then full throttle. The M5 Touring doesn’t simply shoot forward; it presses itself into the ground and begins something like a horizontal launch. It’s a continuous surge that climbs all the way to 6,900 rpm despite the two turbos. I grab the next gear, but immediately have to jump on the brakes — there’s simply not enough space for that kind of speed. Not here, not now.

At this point, anyone would think bringing a 727-horsepower car into a setting like this is about as sensible as teaching an elephant to roller-skate in a crystal shop. In reality, this is exactly where you understand how a massively powerful car can also be incredibly effective. Let’s be honest: not many M5 owners will spend their days on track, and since Autobahns exist only in specific parts of Germany, we really do need the M5 to be enjoyable even in environments that don’t suit its size. That’s why I chose the Verdon.

With Christmas still about a month away, I get an early gift: total, absolute emptiness. Aside from a robin looking for crumbs, we don’t see a single soul, which can be summed up in one word: fun. Because yes, the M5 may be a PHEV, but it’s obsessively focused on celebrating that V8 under the hood. Sequential gearbox engaged, two M modes instantly accessible via the steering wheel buttons, and I bury my right foot once again. Like the RS6, the response is instantaneous, like flipping a light switch in a dark room. The difference is that, when the road allows, your head is almost squeezed by the forward thrust and by the braking force (carbon-ceramics are optional) as you approach tighter corners.

The M5 doesn’t beat around the bush: it’s a rocket. But I already knew — or at least suspected — that. The 4.4-liter is an engineering masterpiece, so elastic it delivers an incredible torque curve across the entire rev range. You can always drop a gear and feel the Pirelli P Zeros struggling to find perfect grip on damp asphalt. But the real surprise is what dispels every doubt enthusiasts had when BMW revealed the car’s weight: 2,583 kg. Over the years we’ve learned to accept how increased size and technology have led to exponential growth in weight, but once you go well beyond two tons, you start to wonder whether all that power is more useful for traffic-light sprints than for attacking a winding road.

I’ll be honest: the M5 Touring is a big car. In the city, there’s a hint of anxiety; finding a parking space that doesn’t leave half the rear sticking out isn’t guaranteed. On tight roads — especially at night, with rain reflecting traffic lights— you often squint, hoping not to leave a mirror behind somewhere. But all of this disappears the moment the road lets you press hard on the gas. That’s where everything clicks: you appreciate the turbo engine’s elasticity, the fast and precise gearbox, and the rear differential that truly shines when you switch to rear-wheel drive. Suddenly, the fear of weight vanishes like dust in the rearview mirror, just like the rock face inches away that pulls you in like a magnet, while on the other side the alternative is a 700-meter drop, the very one that makes the Gorges du Verdon famous worldwide.

The natural spectacle is too overwhelming not to stop and take it in. Approaching one of the many viewpoints perched above the void, your eyes can’t make out details at the bottom. Your legs tremble, a tingling runs through your feet, and only when you’re back inside the BMW — a fast, comfortable shell with all the amenities you’d expect, benefiting from the generous space of the 5 Series platform — you feel at ease again.

Every Alps Attack has always had two main protagonists: the car and the location. This time, I was almost certain I’d fully enjoy the Verdon, but I ended up praising the car more than nature’s masterpiece. That says a lot. The M5 Touring is officially back, and I won’t argue whether it’s better than the RS6 Avant. As I said, the real benchmark — for any BMW enthusiast — is the previous generation, and above all the iconic M5 Touring known as E60. Yes, the one that twenty years ago shook the world with its legendary V10. That’s the comparison that matters. Can this new 730-horsepower plug-in hybrid inherit the crown from such an icon and carry BMW into a new era of well-deserved glory?

This is where paths diverge, just like the roads through the gorges. You can take the diplomatic route, but deep down your gut will always favor one over the other. Sure, the deafening howl of the V10 is incredibly hard to beat, especially with today’s noise regulations. But if we look purely at performance, and at the ability to exploit such an engineering masterpiece on a road that’s the exact opposite of a racetrack, the new M5 is the ultimate Touring.

Think of it this way: you’ve always been told that sedans, wagons and SUVs with this kind of power are statements — proof that “you’ve made it” — usable only far from where they truly belong. In reality, they’ve often proven perfectly capable of attacking a mountain road, thanks to clever weight distribution, torque and traction management, and solutions like rear-wheel steering that make their size and mass far less noticeable than the spec sheet suggests. The new M5 Touring is the culmination of that evolution in every single aspect. It’s not just about outrageous power — so much so that I could count on one hand the times I could truly use it on the road — but about effectiveness and, dare I say, ease. The ease with which you carry speed through corners is something that, the last time we saw the Touring badge next to M5, would have seemed like science fiction, even to legends like Ferrari and Lamborghini.

Remember that slogan claiming any M, RS, or AMG could be the only car you’d ever need in your garage? Practical enough for holidays, safe and technologically advanced, but above all capable of using all that power in ways you can’t imagine until you sit behind the wheel and grip it tightly. At first, with a bit of fear — because it’s seriously fast. But once you realize — cold Pirellis aside — that it’s not trying to kill you at the first corner taken at four times your expected speed, you understand just how beautiful this is. Hybridization, turbocharging, all-wheel drive (yes, but the smart kind): everything works toward canceling out that overwhelming weight until it’s no longer even a memory. Especially when you’re stunned by how the result of this crazy “M to the 5th power” equation still defies the laws of physics and dynamics.

Once again, we can rest easy: driving pleasure is guaranteed. Once again, BMW has created something destined to last, and above all something that rewrites the standards of one of the segments we love the most.