BMW 5 Series

FIRST REPORT Exec saloon joins fleet and instantly proves why it stands tall over its rivals

THIS new king of the corporate car park is the latest model to join the Auto Express fleet. The BMW 5 Series’ unique blend of luxury, performance and ability has made it a hit with business types and families across the country – and we’ll be living with the firm’s big-selling saloon for the next six months to find out exactly why.

Our car is a 520d M Sport with BMW ’s xdrive four-wheel drive. The only other trim on offer in the slimmed-down range is SE, which comes with a £3,000 saving over our sportier car, but gets less standard kit.

This top-spec version has a 187bhp 2.0litre four-cylinder diesel. It’s linked to an eight-speed auto that drives all four wheels via the £2,000 xdrive set-up. This brings the total cost up to £41,185 without any extras.

Add in the Black Sapphire metallic paint finish (£675), visibility package (£1, 295), technology pack (£1,495), comfort package (£1,995), variable damper control (£985), electric sunroof (£995), plus a few other goodies, and our 5 Series comes in at nearly £50,000. That’s a lot of money to spend.

Without the options you can get your hands on a 520d xdrive in M Sport spec for £389 per month with a deposit of £6,939. That’s about comparable with an equivalent Mercedes E-class, give or take a few quid.

As ever, though, you can see and feel where your hard-earned cash has gone inside. The layout is a copy-and-paste job from the larger 7 Series – but that car starts from £65,000, so the 5 Series immediately feels a top-quality product. It’s just a little disappointing that you have to pay extra for features such as split-folding rear seats (£335) and Apple Carplay (£235) on a car as upmarket as this.

However, that initial sense of luxury continues when you hit the road. The 5 Series is based on a version of the 7 Series’ platform, but to keep costs down it doesn’t get that car’s fancy Carbon Core. Nevertheless, the 5 feels every bit as refined and accomplished as its big brother.

One piece of tech that helps is its Gpssynced auto box. It comes as part of the variable damper control option, but it’s well worth adding. Leave the car in Adaptive mode and it uses data from the navigation (it works even better if you set a destination) to tailor the car’s responses as you drive along. It selects the right gear and sets the suspension for each individual corner to keep you as comfortable as possible.

But at the press of a button the car is transformed into a real sports saloon; the added sense of refinement hasn’t come at the expense of agility, for which the 5 Series has long been famous. The steering is beautifully weighted, body control is tight and the engine is eager and smooth. It might feel like a 7 Series on the motorway, but on tight and technical roads the 5 Series is a much more nimble car. And while I’ve yet to feel the benefits of the xdrive all-wheeldrive system, given Britain’s unpredictable weather there’s no doubt it will come in useful at some stage during our test.

This doesn’t detract from the BMW ’s incredible breadth of talents, though – and it’s not just me who has noticed how capable the 5 Series is, either. The list of colleagues waiting patiently in line to get their hands on the keys for a weekend is growing.