BMW i5 Series Touring review: Iconic given a chance

Iconic cars are just that – icons revered across generations of fans and buyers because of their beauty, their abilities, their personalities or their sheer practicality.

An icon can become such for any number of reasons, but actual popularity is one of the main ones, particularly so for what might be termed ‘niche’ cars.

This week’s tester, the BMW i5 Series Touring (the full moniker for the tester is as an i5 40 M Sport Pro Touring) , is a good example. The 5 Series estate (such cars are often given the ‘Touring’ designation, especially by German car makers) only actually came into being in 1991, but since then the Munich concern has sold some 1.2 million of them, demonstrating clearly its popularity.

Of course, the original Tourings were sold with a mix of petrol and diesel engines but lately the need for both hybrid and electric versions has become essential and this week we are testing the first EV Munich has launched and a fine thing it is indeed.

The Irish market has, mystifyingly, remained something of a graveyard for estate cars and I recall a VW spokesman some years ago – at the unveiling of a new Golf generation model – announcing that there would not be an estate version (a staple of model line-up elsewhere) sold here because Irish buyers didn’t want them.

It is the same with many others, although I have personally overseen the purchase of at least three Skoda Superb Combis (that’s their name for their estates) for friends of mine and I know all of the buyers have been delighted with their cars. Largely, though, estates don’t cut it here and people have migrated to an SUV of one sort or another.

But, for those who don’t like SUVs and want a large car that drives like a saloon should, then the estate is often simply a satisfactory answer to their predicament. Oddly, in Germany the estate 5 Series outsells the saloon, so it is a definite case of different strokes, different folks.

In the case of the latest 5 Series Touring, the car is dimensionally the same as the saloon with only a longer roof and more glass turning it into an estate. Despite considerable engineering differences between the iTouring and the saloon version (mainly around the rear axle and for packaging purposes), but it is still calibrated to drive like a saloon.

Largely it achieves that aim, with miniscule noticeable differences only evident in terms of slightly more lean in corners, almost certainly due to the added weight here because of all the batteries and electric appendages. Other than that, the driving experience is almost identical – and that, believe me, is a very good thing.

Time without number I have encountered good cars which, on their transformation to being EVs, have turned into lumbering hulks with little dynamically to recommend them. This one is quite different.

Not alone is it beautiful to drive and live with, it is as refined as they come and although the tester came in a funereal ‘black sapphire metallic’ overcoat (a colour I personally dislike) the good looks of the i5 Touring shone like a beacon.

If the dimensions of the car are similar to the i5 saloon, then so too is the overall platform. An 81.2 kWh drives the 250-kW rear axle motor (this one is rear drive only) via a single speed automatic gearbox. It outputs a very impressive 335 bhp and is good for a 6.1 second 0-100 km/h time and a top speed of 191 km/h.

Like many electrics, the range seems variable depending on the charger you’re using to fill it up; t the official range is 560km, but the most I could get it up to was 420km on a home charger. Nevertheless, it appeared to be an honest broker in this regard and told few lies about how far it would go on a single charge.

The figures are, of course, largely dependent on the manner with which you conduct yourself while behind the wheel. Drive like a hooligan and the range falls off a cliff; using a modicum of restraint does, however, produce impressive results.

Fully charged and driving on a variety of country roads, urban areas and motorways, a 125km trip and not particularly sparing the horses, I still had 280km in the tank at the end of it. In similar circumstances, many other EVs I’ve driven might only have 150km left.

What’s really impressive, though, is the way it goes about its business on the road. It is quiet, refined and, potentially, remarkably quick. Point-to-point on a quiet country road, it is as enjoyable to drive as any performance machine.

Note must be made too of the build quality on offer here because this is as solid machine as you’re likely to encounter anywhere. The almost eerie quiet in the cabin while you’re on the move is hugely impressive and the quality of the interior finish and fittings is standard setting. The words ‘noise, vibration and harshness’ are all but redundant here.

BMW has also made significant strides to make its infotainment systems more driver-friendly and less distracting from your concentration on what’s going on around you. Sure, there’s no separate controls for the heating/climate system, but the way it’s worked here is very acceptable, unlike notable others.

The twin screen layout actually looks like a single unit stretched across the dashboard, but the instrument binnacle and the infotainment elements merge into one another seamlessly. And there’s also an excellent heads-up system as well.

Excellent seating (the rears fold flat to give you 1,700 litres of cargo space back there; it’s 570 with the rears in place) and general roominess make this car a pleasure to drive and be transported in and even the panoramic roof (as fitted to the tester) does not detract from the headroom available to those in the back.

People will always find things to fault on any given car and I know that older Tourer drivers always liked the fact that the opening tailgate window was a trademark feature. The fact that it’s gone from this car will, inevitably, lead to a degree of cribbing, but c’est la vie.

This is as impressive a piece of kit as we’ve seen for a while, even if it’s not cheap. It is wonderful to drive, great to be ferried in, is remarkably well built, beautifully styled and comfortable as they come.

The walk to the SUV genre by so many people might have killed off the estate altogether, but cars like this are a reassurance that the genre will not be allowed vanish altogether. And, if you want or need to be different from the pack, then this is an iconic five-star car with which you can do just that.