NewBMW5-Series powers to the front
BMW’s new seventhgeneration 5-Series immediately impresses for its driving qualities, reports from the sedan’s Australasian media launch.
Up in the top end of the new vehicle market where all the executive sedans live, there’s traditionally been a great rivalry between the German three - Audi, BMWand Mercedes-Benz.
Last year it was the MercedesBenz E-class that gained the upper hand over the Audi A6 andBMW 5-series, with a new model deemed good enough to be named New Zealand Car of the Year.
But now a new seventhgeneration 5-series has arrived, and this fresh interpretation of the classic front-engined and reardriven executive sedan may well be good enough to moveBMW back into pole position.
It arrives in NZ with three latest-generation engine options - two diesel and one petrol - and a high level of driver assistance technology and connectivity. In a few months, probably June, the new sedans will be joined by plugin hybrid and touring versions.
But has all this new technology done anything to affect the 5-Series’ reputation as a driver’s car?
No way, Australasian media were told at a briefing and drive in South Australia’s Barossa region. In fact, journalists were told, the technology will go a long way towards enhancing the reputation.
"We like to think of theBMW 5-Series as very much like a fine wine - it just keeps getting better," saidBMWAustralia’s product and pricing manager Howard Lam.
"It has always been a magic blend of sports and luxury, and even though the new model carries a bunch of new technologies, it remains very much a driver’s car. In that regard the technologies the 5-Series carries are not so much driver intervention, but driver assistance."
The Australian drive programme underlined all of that. Roads through the Adelaide Hills can feature surfaces that are undulating and uneven, which was a perfect environment to try out the new models.
Thanks to use of whatBMW calls Efficient Lightweight design, which involves increased use of aluminium and high-strength steels, the weight of the 5-Series has been reduced by up to 96kg even though the vehicle is bigger and torsionally stiffer. This helped the cars take on the surfaces with aplomb, even with the sedan’s drive mode in a softer comfort setting.
And when the sport mode is selected - well, it allows the new 5-Series to lay claim to dynamically be much better than the old, and that’s what makes it such a significant arrival. Of course it’s a sedan and not an SUV, which means NZ sales will always remain fairly low, but from the driving perspective there’s not an SUV that can touch it.
But at the same time it does offer all the latest-generation driver support. All the new models in NZ feature the carmaker’s Driving Assistant Plus package as standard which uses a suite of radar and camera sensor systems to offer a range of assists including active cruise control with stop and go function, steering and lane control, lane departure warning, speed limit traffic sign recognition, and cross traffic warning.
There’s also plenty of the latest in-vehicle connectivity. The 5-Series features a full complement of ConnectedDrive functionality, including the latest iDrive and navigation systems as standard with a larger, 10.25-inch touchscreen.