A sporty station wagon from back then meets his grandson? Not because there is no current successor. The relatives step in, but are a little out of joint. How do BMW M5 Touring and X6 M compare?
Almost exactly 30 years ago, the desire was still exotic, high-performance on the road and at the same time being able to load a little more into the trunk. BMW did this for the first time with the M5 Touring. If you want the most powerful BMW M model today and still want maximum practicality, you have to go for the X6 M.
An X6 M is still 1.69 meters high despite the mild coupé line. But it also swallows 1530 liters of luggage, a current M5 is not that useful, the trunk of which is much tighter. And it's not available as a station wagon. At least not anymore, because in the nineties and noughties the M5 was also available as a station wagon with the additional designation Touring - also with a very excellent cargo space volume, but more on that later.
First of all, the modern, useful M representative wants to be tried out. At this point one may of course ask why it didn't become an X5 - its luggage compartment could have used even more cargo (1870 liters), but for the small morsel of exclusivity in the form of the sportier body you can snip off a little cargo space. If one can speak of sportiness at all. In order to score maximum points in lateral dynamics on the track, it should perhaps not necessarily be a 2.4-ton truck with a high center of gravity.
No way, longitudinal acceleration is boring. Only 3.8 seconds are enough for the Trumm with the best all-wheel traction up to 100 km/h and even then the expansive BMW marches on with unrelenting forward drive. Depending on the speed, the bi-turbo V8 handled by M GmbH sounds from sonorous and subtle with a slight babble to angry snorting when the crankshaft is rotating at the limit.
As fit as the X6 M may be, it remains essentially an upscale touring car in a prominent position, especially with the (now only available) competition badge, which increases performance by 25 horses to 460 kW/625 hp. In order to get through the bend as well as possible, the engineers gave the heavyweight features such as a mechanical differential lock, rear-axle steering and roll stabilization. While this tech kit doesn't override physics, it does its best to elicit fun features from the huge car on the country road. So the weighty M is not really slow.
Since the elderly Touring is much lighter at 1.8 tons, but by no means light. From this point of view, the large station wagon is not a born lateral performer either, but its four-valve straight-six cylinder, which is already beguiling to look at, with a well-known history (the original engine was already in service in the legendary M1) compensates for pretty much everything that could be faulted with the E34 - and that's not much anyway. The six aesthetically appealing intake manifolds with a black finish open into individual throttle valves in order to make the gas exchange as barrier-free as possible. The engine with racing genes turns correspondingly light-footed.
Again, you have to let the six-pointer rotate, which is not excessively screaming, in order to access the acceleration potential. Of course it's no longer a racing machine by today's standards, but it's still a lot of fun. After the station wagon has been gently warmed up, it is a must to scratch the 7000 mark on the rev counter at least once - then the Bavarian pushes hard, sprints to 100 km/h within 6.1 seconds and keeps the driver happy.
Is moderate cruising also possible? Sure, of course you have to know that the 340 hp power pack always grumbles a bit and the shift lever of the flanged six-speed box moves crisply, but a little bony through the streets. In addition, the M5 is not for weak calf muscles, the clutch pedal is properly tight.
And now with the M5 to the hardware store, that would be something. Why not, as long as you protect the luggage compartment from scratches, the loading space volume (up to 1450 liters) can be used quietly.
However you use the M5, the classic is always an eye-catcher, especially as a rare touring of which only 891 copies were produced. Since the station wagon was not submitted until 1992 (the debut of the E34 was in 1988), it always has the more powerful engine with 340 hp instead of 315 hp. "Too big, too heavy, not enough power - die-hard fans of the first BMW M5 initially only received the more comfort-oriented successor moderately. The 3.8 liter version later helped, and its performance finally created the hoped-for distance to the competition. Good specimens of this variant cost at least 40,000 euros today", the specialists from Classic Analytics know.
Of course, the X6 M is also exotic on the road, but whether it has what it takes to become a classic of a caliber like the M5 Touring remains to be seen. But it is faster, has more practicality and offers the infotainment that you need today. In this regard, the E34 naturally looks thinner with the traditional on-board computer as the only gadget - at least.
BMW M5 Touring (E34) - specifications
BMW X6 M Competition - technical data
