BMW’s Reportedly Selling Way More M5 Wagons Than It Expected, Which Makes A Ton Of Sense

Let’s face it, right now isn’t the greatest time to be into passenger cars. The crossover utility vehicle is the dominant automotive form of the era, the sedanocalypse keeps claiming victims, and it seems that wagons – especially fast ones – are primarily the dreams of extremely online car people. Well, at least some of these digital-realm wagon enthusiasts must’ve come into money recently, because a recent report claims that BMW seriously underestimated just how many people would want an M5 Touring.

According to BMW Blog, the Bavarian automaker originally planned to split M5 production as two-thirds sedans and one-third wagons. However, demand hasn’t quite broken along those lines. As Sylvia Neubauer, Vice President of Customer, Brand, and Sales at BMW M, told the outlet, “We now see that there’s more demand for the sedan, so we’ve increased production there. But there’s even more demand for the Touring. So the increase on the Touring is much higher.” Right now, the body style split is reportedly even, and it’s easy to see why.

Yes, the new M5 weighs more than an F-150, and it trails the outgoing M5 Competition from zero-to-60 mph by a hair, but that just means it makes a whole lot more sense as a wagon than as a sedan. Let’s start with the curious fact that in certain jurisdictions where tax rates are hugely advantageous for plug-in hybrids, it’s actually one of the more affordable M models.

Take France for example. Because the BMW M3 Touring emits 233 grams of CO2 per kilometer, it’s subject to €70,000 in what France calls its malus tax, or roughly $76,280 at current conversion rates. What’s more, it weighs 1,865 kilograms, so it’s also subject to an extra €2,975 of weight tax, or about $3,242.56 at current conversion rates. Add those figures to a list price of €124,300, and you end up with a car costing €197,275, or about $215,000 at current conversion rates once malus tax is added.

While the M5 Touring officially emits between 39 and 46 grams of CO2 per kilometer and weighs 5,621 pounds, it has an electric range of more than 50 kilometers on the optimistic WLTP cycle, rendering it exempt from the emissions part of France’s malus tax. As such, the weight tax of €20,500, and once you add that to the MSRP of €164,900, the M5 Touring actually works out cheaper in France than the M3 Touring by about €11,875, or $12,938 at current conversion rates.

Then there’s the practicality of the wagon body. At 27.2 cu.-ft., cargo space with the rear seats up trails that of the X5 M Competition by a considerable margin, but that’s not the whole story. The popularity of crossover coupes suggests that many buyers are willing to sacrifice some practicality so long as they’re getting a more flexible cargo area than in a sedan, and not only is the M5 Touring right up there with the X6 M Competition in U.S. cargo volume with the rear seats up, the more traditional roofline of the M5 Touring should be advantageous for loading boxy and tall items.

Finally, there’s a matter of precedent. While the new M5 sedan is constantly being compared to the old one, the last M5 Touring was a fire-breathing V10 model with a somewhat clunky single-clutch automated manual transmission and a fearsome maintenance reputation, plus it went out of production in 2010. It’s certainly not directly comparable to the new M5 Touring, and competition in the extremely fast wagon space is currently limited.

The Audi RS6 Performance is out there as an all-combustion option, but not only does it come in at a tax disadvantage in some locales, it’s a bit anodyne and body control isn’t its forte, allowing lots of squat and dive. At the other extreme, the Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo is unbelievably quick and surprisingly tactile, but it’s also much smaller inside than the M5 Touring and RS6 Performance, not to mention more expensive. With the Panamera Sport Turismo and Mercedes-AMG E 63 S wagon dead, BMW has suddenly found itself competing for a bigger slice of a small pie than it might have a few years ago. Smart move.

Top graphic image: BMW

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