BMW M5 Touring

The G99 M5 may be BMW's ultimate super-estate on paper, but is the smaller M3 Touring better?

- Sam Jenkins (@evosamj)

THE CURRENT M5 HAS DIVIDED OPINION not just on the internet but across the evo office too. And one question that almost inevitably crops up every time our M5 Touring is being discussed is this: would you be better off with an M3 Touring instead? So this month we brought our G99 M5 together with a G81 M3 to find the answer.

Being from different classes, these two aren't direct rivals. Their basic prices are quite some distance apart too, £91,865 for the M3 playing £113,605 for the M5. But if you're looking for a practical, genuinely fast estate, they both rank among the most compelling options on sale.

The M3 is hardly a small car - that much was made very clear when I parked it next to my 2010-vintage C63 Estate - but side-by-side with the M5 it looks relatively compact. It's not news that the current M5 is a chunky thing, but this comparison really put its size into perspective.

The M5 Touring suffers the same design peculiarities as its saloon counterpart: the slab-sided appearance of the door area and divisive illuminated grille are sticking points, but to my eyes the estate body works better than the saloon. The widened arches, aggressive diffuser and squat stance come together from behind to make it very clear that this is a serious machine - it has a truly purposeful look if you catch it right (note 'if').

Despite, or possibly because of the practical body style, the M5 is almost unfathomably popular with the general public. Our long-termer summons up more phone-camera shots and petrol pump chats than just about anything else, to the point where the M3 sitting right beside it might as well be invisible. If all publicity is positive, perhaps the internet's response to the M5's huge weight has actually done it some good.