In the world of the BMW M enthusiast, there are a couple of unicorns we rarely, if ever, get to see. Among them you’ll find whispers of a BMW M7, BMW M8, BMW supercar or even the BMW M5 Touring. While some are currently in the making, for others nearly all hope has been lost, such as the latter model on our unicorn list.
The BMW M5 in Touring guise was offered only for two generations so far. Initially, the E34 model had an M Touring version in its line-up, a rare car that was still, back in those days, being built manually in BMW’s Garching plant. Then, the E39 M5 came along and fans of wagons were disappointed to learn that a Touring choice wasn’t in the books.
Luckily for us, BMW changed its mind seven years later and when the E60 M5 came out with its brilliant 5-liter V10 engine, it was also offered in Touring guise under the E61 code name. That model became a sort of unicorn in the BMW world, as I said, and it is truly a sight to behold, especially on a drag strip as we’re showing you in the video below.
In the footage seen below, the BMW goes up against its arch rival from Mercedes-Benz’s AMG division from that era, an E55 AMG in sedan guise. For those of you who aren’t up to par with the specs of early 2000s AMG models, the E55 used a 5.4-liter V8 making 476 PS and 700 Nm (516 lb-ft) of torque thanks to forced induction. That means it would do 100 km/h (62 mph) from standstill in 4.7 seconds.
On the other hand, the M5 Touring weighed more and has significantly less torque as it used a naturally aspirated engine. The brilliant S85 5-liter V10 unit under the hood used to make 507 PS and some 520 Nm (384 lb-ft) of torque. Weighing close to 2 tons, the wagon would still outpace proper sports cars of the era, reaching 100 km/h (62 mph) in 4.8 seconds. As you probably noticed from the spec list, these two are as close as it gets and the result of the race seems to confirm that, quite evidently.
