EVOLUTIONARY ROAD

BMW has nailed its EV colours to the mast with the new fully electric i5 executive saloon. To find out whether it's a worthy successor to the seven preceding 5 series generations, PRESTIGE takes it for a drive.

- JON WALL

If you were wondering whether there were two design teams at BMW, each pulling in a different aesthetic direction from the other, look no further than the company’s recently launched contender in the premium executive segment. It’s actually the eighth iteration of Munich’s much-loved and imitated 5 series, whose initial E12 generation took its first peek at daylight more than 50 years ago—in 1972, to be exact. And unlike several recent Beemers (mentioning no names, though on second thoughts I will: the 7 series luxo-barge, and the X7 and XM mega-SUVs), whose polarisingly vast bulks and angry countenances bellow “Get out of my way!” to lesser denizens of the automotive kingdom, the latest G60 incarnation’s elegant, athletic and, most of all, evolutionary styling is exactly what I think a 5 series—and, indeed, all BMWs— should look like. Do the two teams throw bread rolls at each other from opposite ends of the design department? Or do furious fistfights between brutalists and evolutionists erupt during styling strategy meetings? I’ll leave you to ponder these and similar questions in your own time.