2025 BMW M5 Review

Words: Peter Anderson
Pics: Matt Garrard (IG @mattg81)
Co-pilots: Mark Dewar and Blake Currall.

Getting on twenty years ago I arrived home and fixed my wife with a look of helplessness. I had just come back from an afternoon driving M cars around Philip Island, long before I had this gig as a motoring writer.

"What did you do?" she asked in reply to the look.

"Nothing! I didn't buy anything!" I replied to ease the idea I had just bankrupted us with a rash M car purchase. I had been whisked off to the day at the track because a dealer had made several separate hashes of a simple fix to my E87 120i.

"You did something though."

"Well, yes. I drove a lot of cars really fast around Philip Island." (well I thought I was going fast until Geoff Brabham took me round in an E92 M3) "And I drove an M5. I think I'm going to have to have one before I die."

It was an E60 M5 sedan. Derided (initially) for its looks, it has aged beautifully in my eyes and was the sole V10-powered M5.

A few years later I went into a dealership in Sydney with my E87 130i (our third 1er, we're on our eighth as a family) intending to return home with a Renaultsport Megane. I have no idea why I had lost my mind and wanted to sell the 130i, a modern classic, a six-speed manual with the the N52 3.0-litre straight-six.

Anyway, my eye was caught briefly by a Ferrari 360 Modena for just $60,000. We were still in the aftermath of the GFC and cars like that were cheap. Even a twin-clutch one, safely locked away, would have doubled in value in the following year or two for a tidy profit. The Lotus Elise for $35k that I passed on? Seventy grand today. Even my wife admits I would have been right to buy either.

Then, behind the F360 my son spotted a silver BMW. He was only 10 at the time but he recognised the M badge. It was a proper M-car, an immaculate, V10-powered E60 with 110,000km on the clock.

A few phone calls later (the mechanic responsible for it at a BMW dealer said, "He babied it, just buy it."), finance, a hard bargain on the 130i as a trade-in and it was mine. It needed new rubber, a good service and I bought a pretty good warranty for it because I knew a V10 wasn't cheap if it went bang (this was before the rod bearing issue became A Big Thing).

I couldn't believe my luck. I had a bucket list car that I never truly thought I could own for a fifth of what the original owner had paid for it. And it was just six years old. Over the following years I drove its successors, they were great fun, but they weren't as unhinged as the E60 I so adored and want back.

And so we come to the G90 BMW M5. It's still a V8, twin-turbo and a big four-door sedan, as it has been since the end of E60 production.

But, like, really big. It looks big and it is big at over five metres long. It's also got a hybrid system, amping up the power and delivering a torque number formerly the preserve of modern Bugattis – 1000Nm. As a result, it's 2500kg, nearly three quarters of a ton more than my E60.

I don't buy into the keyboard warrior nonsense that M is dead or this is heresy or whatever, but that weight figure made me pause for more than a moment. Could this be the end of the M5 as we've known it? Or has something a bit unexpected happened and it's gone back to being utterly nuts? Or has a third, even more unexpected thing occurred?

How much is the 2025 BMW M5 and what does it cost?

M5 Sedan: $259,900 (April 2025)
M5 Touring:

Two hundred and sixty large looks like a lot of money. And it is. Apologies for taking you back to the E60 again, but 20 years ago an unadorned M5 was $225,000 in Australia, give or take and there were a lot of options.

M5s went as low as around $185,000 in the F10 for a stripped-out Pure but in twenty years it has picked up just $35,000 in the new car price and it's fully loaded.

And if you look around, the F90s got into the $250k area, so despite the crushing inflation on new car prices, we're back where we started ten years ago, give or take.

Naturally it's fully loaded, with big screens, heated seats, leather everywhere, configurable screen, many zones of climate control, laser headlights. It has the works, you'll want for nothing except lightness.

Drivetrain

Returning to the M5 is the 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8, now with nearly 800 horsepower. If you're one of those EV-haters, that's all you need to know. Move on.

On its own, the V8 spins up 430kW, which is actually quite a bit less than the old car. Well, its official figure, anyway. Torque is a massive 750Nm.

Added to this is a hybrid motor buried in the gearbox, which still the ever-awesome eight-speed ZF. The 145kW motor is fed by a 22.1kW gross/18.6kWh usable battery in the back of the car and as a plug-in hybrid, you can wizz about in EV mode at up to 140km/h. The only drama is the 7.8kW AC-only charging speed, which pretty much locks you out of public charging but on the bright side, you can plug it in anywhere.

If you don't do anything silly you'll easily run 50km in EV mode or even more if you're careful. That's impressive but, obviously adds to the heft of this machine. BMW had considered going mild hybrid but figured in for a penny, in for a lot of pounds. Personally and after much mental deliberation, I think it's the right thing.

The electric motor's torque figure is 280Nm but BMW says a "pre-gearing stage enables effective torque at the transmission input to be increased to 450Nm." Yikes. It feels like has plenty of torque in electric mode.

All told, BMW says you have 535kW and 1000Nm of torque. I mean, that's a lot, two and a half tonnes or not. And, being BMW, 535kW is a straight-up fib, because anyone who has put the G90 M5 on a dyno has seen close to 800 horsepower, so the M5 is closing in on 600kW. Let's call it 580kW, split the difference.

Hilariously, the M5 gets 3.0L/100km on the official combined cycle. Due to my stupid schedule, co-pilot Mark picked up the M5 and when he handed it over it was doing 5.9L/100km.

The WLTP figures are more fantastical, with 1.9L/100km on the combined cycle. Less fantastical is the 25kWh/100km on EV mode, but that's pretty much what you can expect hauling about a big V8 as well.

It can work in a very normal, familiar hybrid mode, which is another reason the combined cycle figure is low.

0-100km/h is over in a McLaren-like 3.5 seconds and independent testing has seen that figure slip down to 3.4 seconds. Top speed is a predictable 255km/h while the optional speed restrictor will see it beyond 300km/h.

The F90 was slightly quicker to 100 which has caused the usual internet bamboozlement but it didn't have an electric motor in it which means you can slip around town with zero emissions.

And on that point, many M5 owners will likely own their own home and therefore be able to fit solar panels. I charged the M5's battery at the slower 3kW rate (I don't have a wallbox) and paid exactly nothing for it because it all fell out of the sky. I get bugger-all feeding it to the grid because of AGL and Ausgrid's crushing greed so putting it into your car and saving fuel is far more cost-effective.

And if you're a data nerd, reduces your payoff time markedly. Go on, get some panels and feed your super sedan electrons to own the libs.

Driving

Some more numbers before we go on. The 20-inch fronts and 21-inch rears are shod with Hankook Ventus tyres as standard. This was an interesting choice which we will explore more. They measure 285/40 ZR20 on the front and 295/35 ZR21 at the rear. UK-spec cars appear to come with Michelin Pilot Sport 5s these days and I'm not sure if that's like an Audi thing where it's pot-luck which rubber you get (the RS3, for example, had a choice of two or three tyre manufacturers).

Active rear-wheel steer is a first for the M5, counter-steering up to 1.5 degrees at low speeds for turn-in and in the same direction at high speeds for stability.

I loved pootling about in electric. That sounds stupid and looks pretty silly written down but there's something utterly breathtaking about all this potential prowling the streets in near-silence. As I said, the electricity fell out of the sky on to my roof. It felt fine, right almost.

I carry a lot of guilt (yeah, yeah, what a snowflake, yada yada) about my carbon impact so the idea I could, if I had the money, have the best of both worlds is very appealing. Every day smugness with zero emissions motoring, occasional smugness brought on by just how damn fast thing can go when everything is turned on.

And boy is this thing fast. I went in thinking it would be like the mad X5 M I drove a few years ago. Heavy but creaking when you really had your foot in. The M5 was not a bit of it. It felt completely tied together in brisk on-road motoring on my favourite bit of road.

Braking was straight, true and powerful, which is cheering because of the speeds and weight they have to deal with.

The engine's galactic torque number had me thinking if I got anything wrong I'd be in orbit. I really didn't mind the steering at all, it was perfectly geared, nicely weighted. All together - it could do with more feel.

And of course, the engine could do with more sound. But honestly, when you're threading together your favourite bit of road and keeping this wide boi off the armco and out of oncoming traffic, you don't really notice.

The tyres were the only part of the package I wasn't sure about. The Hankooks had tons of grip and the compliance in the sidewalls was welcome, as was the way they signal when things are approaching a bit naughty. But around Sydney's abomination of a road network they hunted every ripple and hump. I don't want to have to correct so often.

Which was in sharp contrast to how they were when the pressure was on. But you just know the last thing they'll see will be a set of fresh Michelins. I know that's what I would do.

Perhaps the only thing I would do at purchase is specify the carbon ceramic brakes up front (for a mere $14,231). While the steels were super-impressive, even in my short bursts of hard-driving I felt I wanted just a little more confidence. That may just have been me rolling the weight figure around in my head but I did wonder how they would fare on track.

And this is where my hot take about this car that you will shortly read will make a little more sense. This doesn't, in this spec anyway, feel like a car you'd take to the track. You will absolutely rule just about any road – Corsica excepted, I suppose – in this thing. I can't imagine how much fun a tarmac rally would be in one. I couldn't see myself enjoying a track day in it.

Which is fine, not every car is built for that and maybe not every M5 is. Or has to be. Because the cars that started it all, even the perceived pinnacle of M5-ness, weren't track cars.

Redline Recommendation

So here's my hot take about the M5, controversial even. You know how everyone bangs on about the E39 M5? It's a lovely thing. Manual, naturally-aspirated V8. Elegant, refined, fast. A real executive express. It could dance a bit, yes, but fundamentally it was a really, really good sports sedan. For the road.

I think the G90 is the closest in spirit to the E39 than any M5 since. The margins aren't big, I'll grant you that, but the G90 is a crushingly fast executive express just like the E39. It's refined in a way the E39 could only hope for and probably a lot more comfortable.

Photographer Blake and I argued about this a lot and it was glorious fun. He's of the opinion it should be half the weight and, in a sense, he's right. But that's not how cars are in 2025. We all want everything and if we don't get it, we don't buy it. Stuff means weight.

And Blake isn't a knuckle-dragging anti-electric guy. He and I could and probably will record a three-hour video on the joys of the new electric Renault 5 when it reaches our shores.

Co-pilot Mark and I were closer in our opinions. Mark absolutely adored the M5 and wrestling it from his hands was understandably difficult. We were completely in agreement that this is a belter of a machine.

European regulations demand electrification for this car to survive into the next decade, which it must. And I really hope it does because I think it will change some minds on electrification. You don't have to love EVs but they're coming whether you like it or not. If BMW can convince you it's not the worst thing in the world, perhaps you'll come around to a more pragmatic way of thinking about it.

I loved this car. It's a massive wrecking ball of a thing, demolishing all before it. The way it goes about its business is breathtakingly simple on the surface despite everything that's going on underneath. The E60 is still my favourite even though it's demonstrably less capable, but you'd be hard-pressed to talk me out of a G90 if I had the money.