The BMW M5, since its first appearance in the Reagan era, has always been an extreme project. However, sometime between the 1984 original and the latest version, which appeared for the 2024 model year, the philosophy behind it changed.
The goal is the same: Build a version of BMW’s 5 Series luxury sedan ready for a weekend at the track with no prep, then sell it to anyone crazy enough to commute to work in it.
But, if you’ve driven early M5 models, you know BMW got there partly through removing everything unnecessary to speed. The 2025 M5, on the other hand, lacks nothing. It’s a super luxury car with every modern amenity that, by the way, can get from zero to 60 mph in about three seconds.
Gone are the thin-shelled sport seats, replaced with heated multifunction seats lined in Merino leather. Gone is the minimalism, replaced with a Bowers & Wilkins Diamond Surround Sound system with 18 speakers and a parking assistance system that will park it for you.
Even the old concept of a brutally powerful engine and little else to make it fast is gone. This is a plug-in hybrid with an electric motor built directly into the transmission. Far from stripping out features for weight, engineers decided to live with a staggering 5,390-pound curb weight and just overcome it with 717 horsepower.
It’s not the old M5. But it is extraordinary. BMW loaned me a tester for a week of driving. I tootled around the suburbs in it, hit the highways at night to find an open road, and took it down Skyline Drive to enjoy the handling.
Which Trim Level?
BMW doesn’t offer different trim levels of M5 in 2025 — there’s just one. Anyone who wants more can shop for quarter-million-dollar exotic cars. My tester came in Frozen Deep Gray with a red and black Merino leather cabin. The Carbon, Driving Assistance Professional, and Executive packages helped push its price to more than twice that of a basic 530i.
Favorite Feature
The best feature of the 2025 BMW M5 is the adaptability of its sophisticated drivetrain.
The worst part of buying a high-performance car is sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic in it. BMW engineers have figured that out.
Some purists might miss the bare-bones brutality of the classic M5s, but truth be told, this one is quicker than the old ones and quite comfortable crawling along in gridlock.
You can set it to operate as an electric car for as long as its battery will permit, drive in a fuel-saving (in relative terms) hybrid mode, and chill out in Road mode. All are supremely comfortable.
Then, when conditions allow, Sport and Track modes let you remember why you paid extra. Two bright red M buttons on the steering wheel, however, wake up the demons in the engine bay. M1 is for dynamic driving and gives you most of the car’s barbarous horsepower. M2 is meant solely for the track and gives you all of it.
That adaptability lets you have the M car of your dreams and turn it off when traffic is sleepy.
What It’s Like to Drive
Few cars offer more than 700 hp. They’re mostly exotic two-seaters or huge SUVs that need the power to make their weight reasonable. But here it is, in a family sedan.
Gasoline engines offer the thrill of a building torque curve and an aggressive snarl. Electric motors offer instant torque that must be felt to be believed. The 2025 M5 gives you the best of both, with ridiculously smooth acceleration, electric at the low end and gas-powered as it crests.
Isn’t all that weight a problem for handling, though? No. Not at all.
BMW’s xDrive all-wheel drive (AWD) system and Hankook Ventus S1 Exo Z tires (285 up front and 295 in the rear) give it ridiculous grip, such that you’ll feel confident taking corners faster than advisable. And the steering ratios remain perhaps the finest outside of the supercar realm.
Braking distances are comically short.
And all of that can be reined in for the drive to work.
Interior Comfort and Technology
The M5 is nearly three inches wider than a stock 5 Series. The cabin feels spacious, but getting used to just how far you sit from the corners of the car in the 2025 M5 still takes time. Cameras and parking sensors make it manageable without incident.
The seats feel plush and soft, unlike what you might expect from an M car.
The latest version of BMW’s iDrive puck control knob is still here on the center console, but using it is entirely optional. Between voice commands and a responsive 14.9-inch central touchscreen, I found myself ignoring it.
Dual wireless charging pads up front are a wise decision.
BMW designers have developed a new habit of virtually hiding HVAC vents. They’re still present, but buried in slots in the dashboard so that you can barely see them. You aim them with small stalk-like controllers. They work as well as visible vents, but no better.
Rear seat space is ample, and the trunk, at 16.5 cubic feet, can handle four adults’ worth of luggage.
Limitations
As designers switched from a less-is-more mentality to a more-is-more frame of mind, they developed a car of starship complexity. The M5 will routinely turn on the cooling as the car sits in your driveway, prompt you to schedule service appointments, and provide you with the option to know the temperature of its many components.
That’s exactly what some buyers are looking for, but I wonder if all that complexity should ever be out of warranty. If you’re investing in this much car, I’d advise you to invest in the BMW Ultimate Care warranty extensions upfront, which can extend warranty protection as far out as 125,000 miles. That’s not a comment on the car’s expected reliability. It’s simply an acknowledgment that F1 cars have teams of engineers, and maybe this should, too.
