Why I love...'SECOND-BEST' MODELS

The M5 has long been the pinnacle of the BMW 5 Series range, and it has always been very good, but it has lost all of its subtle Q-car status in recent generations, it has become far more difficult to deploy on public roads and the current one costs £111k.

- TOM EVANS

All of which serves to enhance the appeal of what you might call the 'lesser' variants.

Case in point: I spotted what I thought was a very tidy E61-generation BMW 520d in a car park recently, with large, shiny alloys. But closer examination revealed that it was a rather more interesting beast: a 550i. I've always had a jones for them: they seem to have nearly everything the M5 has but none of the downsides.