Timing is everything. When BMW launched an M5 Touring to the world in 1992, the first time the badge had been on an estate car, it must have seemed like quite the coup. Motorsport cachet with practicality, if slightly at odds with each other, was unheard of back then, and surely likely to tempt a few potential buyers.
Then came the Audi. By 1994 Audi had shown the RS2 and set a template for the fast estate to follow: turbocharged for torque, four-wheel drive for traction, compact and wieldy for whatever life throws at it. With Porsche input as the cherry on top. Audi ended up making more than initially expected, such was the demand (2,900), in less time than it took for 891 Tourings to be produced out of 12,000 total E34 M5s. The fact that there wasn’t an immediate replacement for the BMW, while Audi soldiered on with fast and four-wheel drive family cars, has sort of left the first M Touring on the fringes of M5 fandom for a little while. Undoubtedly cool, yes - but more of a footnote than a chapter in itself.
Now, however, M-car wagons are back in business. It’s been a tumultuous ride at times, with a wild V10 emerging when least expected and a couple of generations that would surely have really suited the Touring treatment but didn’t get it, though at last there’s an M5 with a big boot available to buy across the world. And it’s pretty good. Indeed, for the first time in history, there’s an M3 and an M5 Touring available to order. Praise be, maybe the world isn’t so bad after all. Sure, the 3 Series still has those grilles and the 5 Series is heavy, but two M Tourings that aren’t perfect feels a whole lot better than none at all.
The presence of the dynamic duo in showrooms brings the E34, for so long an outlier, into sharper focus. Firstly, as a starting point, but also for the sort of coolness that comes from being a rediscovered '90s icon. Hence the reason for BMW bringing it along, alongside a host of other historic M5s, to drive with the launch of the new G90/G99. And for PH pinching the keys.
The E34 wagon arrived as part of a wider facelift for the entire M5 range; the saloon received a bored and stroked 3.8-litre, 340hp version of the S38 straight six then, so all the Tourings have it as well. It launched with a five-speed manual, with later cars getting a six-speed and Electronic Damper Control. ‘To a large extent hand finished’ is BMW’s line on the construction of E34 M5s, with brakes and suspension upgraded to make it drive like an M car ought to, including a compound braking system to lower temps and improve performance. At just 70kg heavier than the saloon (1,720kg vs. 1,650kg), BMW stated that ‘the race-based technology of the BMW M5 Sedan was transferred with minimal adjustments.’ All of the Tourings made were left-hand drive, and never officially offered in the UK.
So to see one anywhere more than 30 years later is exciting enough, let alone BMW Classic’s example, complete with the power output on the private plate, just 25,000km on the clock, and a glorious spec: the iconic throwing star alloys, a wonderful deep sea blue (help us out please BMW fans), and waxy, sumptuous ivory leather that’s the perfect contrast. This must have been a special build in period because there’s so much hide and so much veneer, but even the standard M5 bits feel unimpeachably solid. And luxurious, oddly enough. So often the assumption is that M meant motorsport for a very long time after CSLs and M1s, but just a year from the last E30 M3 this feels a very plush, accommodating luxury estate - i.e. much more how we’d think of a modern M car. Complete with car phone, climate control and automatically dipping electric mirrors.
Of course, it doesn’t take very long on the road to acknowledge that there undoubtedly is some BMW Motorsport in the M5, and it’s under the bonnet. If inevitably a little muted, there is very little to rival the experience of an S-designated, individual throttle-bodied, BMW straight-six. It’s just so urgent and so willing, snapping forward at the merest throttle opening while half a dozen greedy cylinders gorge on all the air and fuel they can force in. The 3.8 snarls, barks and rasps like only an inline six can, guttural under load and then howling for the redline with abandon. The incongruous mating of this engine with this bodystyle isn’t exactly logical, much as with the later E61 V10, though heck is it exciting.
Indeed such is the enthusiasm for revs that it’s easy to overlook for a while that there’s not a huge amount of torque in an M5 Touring. 295lb ft is the same as a 540i of the period, and less than an M135 of today, which also weighs less. Plus the peak isn’t there until 4,750rpm, so sometimes the E34 can be caught off guard, and have you frantically stirring around the manual (still like a very large fork in an even bigger bowl of noodles) for a bit more get up and go. Probably worth it for the touring car top end, mind, if still sub-optimal for a family in a hurry. A little while spent in this one makes it clear that the M5 Touring would have been a really tough sell if it ran the earlier 3.6-litre S38 that the saloon used from ‘88, with 315hp and just 266lb ft.
Once up to speed, be that slowly but surely hauling from a high gear or chasing every last rev, the M5 Touring is utterly imperious. There’s some autobahn close to BMW’s press centre in Garching, and the E34 gladly sits at three-figure cruising speeds like it was meant to do nothing else. There’s some engine noise without the sixth gear (just 209 later Tourings with the extra gear are said to exist), though naturally it’s as smooth as velvet, and the composure is beyond reproach. It tracks like a TGV, ready for whichever European capital (or ski resort) you’re off to next.
And if softer than a modern M car, the Touring is not a bad M5 to drive either. Everything is inevitably a little more deliberate, though there’s progress to be made and balance to appreciate on the odd corner off an autobahn. That almost hyper-responsive nature that characterises new M cars - large or small(ish) - isn’t here, everything requiring that bit more effort and thought. The steering in particular is from BMW’s bad old days, as a box rather than rack-and-pinion: slow and not especially informative, a feeling exacerbated by the captain’s wheel in front of you. That being said, the brakes are impressive - certainly not always guaranteed with old fast BMWs - and that sensation of a perfect load equilibrium between a steering front axle and driven rear, can just about be felt here. With deference to the age and condition, nobody was going crazy, yet the E34 certainly felt like an M car rather than merely a 5 Series with a big engine. Beyond the sound and the leather and the phone, it offers up the fizz in a way that no 540i could. Exactly as it should.
There’s more of the modern M car template than might be imagined here, too. Because like it or not, the more family-focused models are now the big sellers, with SUVs providing the bulk of M sales. And you can bet North America will take to the G99. The combination of a rousing M powertrain with space and a sense of occasion is more popular than ever, and it’s a trend that started (then paused, for quite a while), with the E34 M5 Touring. So for a small selling M car, it’s a very significant one.
But let’s be abundantly clear: not every practical M car attains Hero status, because not every practical M car is tremendously good. You’ll have your own nominees for that category. The first M5 Touring is a PH Hero because it retains so much of what made a great M5 saloon so good, particularly in 3.8-litre form, then melds that prowess to a seriously handsome estate body. A seemingly simple task, albeit expertly executed - creating an icon in the process. These days you’ll hunt high and low across Europe for M5 Tourings, and pay a chunky premium over the equivalent saloon, but with factory M wagons back in fashion at last the original has never looked quite so mighty. Now, finally, is its time.
SPECIFICATION | BMW M5 TOURING (E34)
Engine: 3,795cc straight-six
Transmission: 5-speed manual, rear-wheel drive, LSD
Power (hp): 340@6,900rpm
Torque (lb ft): 295@4,750rpm
0-62mph: 5.9 seconds
Top speed: 155mph
Weight: 1,720kg
MPG: Less than a new one
CO2: More than a new one
On sale: 1992-1995
Price new: N/A
Price now: from £40k (if you can find one!)
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