Sweet Success x

Believe it or not, we’re into the seventh generation of BMW 5 Series. Halfway through it, in fact, for the car you see here is the mid-life update of the ‘G30’ Five. It’s BMW’s oldest nameplate and in 2022, it turns 50 years old. Let’s hope we’ll all be allowed out clubbing by then to celebrate On the surface, this one’s facelift-by-numbers – new, squarer lights, a longer kidney grille (though not new 4 Series long, thank the lord), a smattering of new colour and trim options and more hybridisation than ever. But there’s stuff you mightn’t have expected, too, not least the addition of an M550i at the top of the range for us right-hand-drive folk. Very, very good news.And the G30 was hardly in desperate need of a refresh as it was. It’s perhaps the best-rounded 5 Series since the legendary E39 generation, combining E-Class-rivalling luxury with BMW’s usual driving nous. That its range is dramatically expanding just as the Jaguar XF’s is thinning down says a lot about this car’s dominance. Think ‘biggish posh saloon’, you probably think 5 Series. They’ve sold 600,000 of these G30s in a smidge over three years. Yikes.