The 8,250-RPM V10 Wagon BMW Refused To Sell In America
I was driving my beater Z3 through the fanciest suburb of the Detroit area when a V8 rumbled up to a stoplight. I saw the long, low shape of BMW’s 5,500-pound turbo V8/PHEV station wagon: The G99-generation M5 Touring. A well-dressed middle-aged man at the wheel wore a huge smile. He might not have been so pleased about his $125,300 Bimmer if he knew that it’s a weak consolation prize compared to the M5 Touring we missed. The 500-horsepower high-revving F1-inspired V10 wagon. It was the final analog super wagon. And BMW refused to sell it in America.
American Drivers Love An M5 Touring
Performance wagons have always been rare, forbidden fruit among BMW enthusiasts. In fact, the current G99-generation M5 “Touring” (2025-present) is the first M5 wagon ever sold in the U.S. Enthusiasts have long been importing older examples of the M5 Touring or even building clones from base 5 Series wagons. So it’s no surprise that our first M5 Touring is selling like hotcakes—even though it can set you back $150,000 when fully loaded. I’ll admit its numbers are pretty impressive, if you don’t look into them too deeply.
First off, it features BMW’s beloved 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8. That engine makes 577 hp on its own. But because more is more, the M5 Touring pairs the V8 with a 194-hp electric motor. The result is a Hellcat-taunting 717 hp and 738 lb-ft of torque.
All that electric torque is available at 0 rpm, and every M5 Touring is AWD. It’s no surprise that this thing can leap to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds. And if you want to get a little sideways, you can toggle the RWD setting in track mode.
The G99 Touring Is A Bona Fide Chonk Wagon
A buyer such as my well-heeled neighbor might not be caught dead in a Hellcat. But the M5 Touring is an environmentally-friendly hybrid. It has a 14.8 kWh lithium-ion battery you can top off overnight for an EPA-estimated 29 miles of all-electric driving the next day. That means you can slip out of the neighborhood and into your PTA meeting without making a sound.
So what about when you’ve hit your 29-mile limit? The battery alone weighs 440 pounds. The entire hybrid system adds 882 pounds to the vehicle. This thing is 1,153 pounds more than the last M5 Touring. BMW admits the wagon tips the scales at 5,530 pounds. That’s a half-ton more than the chunky Hellcat Charger widebody.
Don’t tell the PTA: The EPA rates the M5 Touring at 13 mpg combined city/highway when running on gasoline alone. At least my Michigan neighbor ordered his not-very-green M5 Touring in the custom-looking “Isle of Man Green Metallic” color.
This latest M5 Touring is essentially a lowered SUV. But American buyers don’t care. BMW is currently selling more M5 Touring wagons in the U.S. than regular M5 sedans. In fact, M5 Touring sales numbers are higher in the U.S. than in Europe. Obviously, U.S. buyers love a BMW performance wagon. But we missed the best one.
BMW Once Nabbed A V10 Off Its Own F1 Assembly Line
When BMW began developing its new M5 for the 2005 model year, it knew it wanted the car to earn a 500 horsepower rating. Its signature naturally aspirated I6 wasn’t going to do the trick. While competitors were using V8 engines and even V12 engines, BMW engineers began wondering about the overlooked V10 layout.
A V10 had enough cylinders to make 500 hp easily. And its exotic sound was instantly recognizable from the Formula 1 race cars of the day. In fact, the BMW foundry in Landshut was already casting V10 blocks destined for F1. So BMW ordered a V10 engine block for its new M5. That said, the M5’s V10 would have nothing else in common with the race car power plants born in the same foundry.
The engineers at Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft (BMW) know their engines. They knew that by dialing the compression up to 12:1 and the redline above 8,000 rpm, they could make 100 horsepower per cubic liter. So they developed their V10 with a nice tidy displacement target of 5.0 liters.
To build a high-revving engine, they settled on a 92-mm bore and 75.2-mm stroke. According to the Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN), the resulting “S85” hit 507 hp by 7,750 rpm. It also made 384 lb-ft of torque at 6,100 rpm. It didn’t redline until 8,250 rpm. In North America, the SAE rated the S85 at 500 hp even.
2007-2010 E61 M5 Touring: The Final Analog Super Wagon
How do you teach drivers to shift when driving an exotic V10 that doesn’t make peak horsepower until above 7,000 rpm? Short of sending them to F1 driver school, you’re probably going to end up with a bunch of disappointed customers. So BMW decided to only offer its S85 in an M5 with an automatic gearbox—much to the dismay of three-pedal enthusiasts everywhere.
In 2005, BMW was immensely proud of its 7-speed SMG Drivelogic. “This was not a retrospectively automatic version of a manual gearbox, but was designed from the start to be an automatic.” The shift points were “fastidious” and programmed to take advantage of the high redline and rear-end gear ratio for rapid acceleration.
Y2K-era BMW was also very proud of its newfangled “digitalization of engine control.” The M5 started up with 400 hp, but offered a 500 hp mode that increased the output. It also had a Sport mode which shortened the time between gear shifts. BMW claimed the M5 Touring wagon (codenamed the E61) could rocket to 62 mph (100 km/h) in 4.8 seconds. The sedan (named the E60) could hit 60 mph in 4.4 seconds.
The 2005 BMW M5 weighed much less than our current M5 Touring. But it did have some heft. Its curb weight was 4,310 pounds (1,955 kg), making that 60 mph sprint all the more impressive.
The Grass Is Greener On The Other Side Of The Atlantic
American buyers could pick up the 2005–2010 (E60) M5 sedan. But yet again, BMW kept the wagon for Europe. BMW refused to sell the E61-generation M5 Touring in the U.S. Perhaps this is because it wasn’t a big seller in Europe. Between 2007 and 2010, BMW built only 1,025 Touring-configuration M5s. Just 222 of those were right-hand-drive versions for markets such as the United Kingdom.
For comparison, Bugatti built 290 of its Type 37 Grand Prix cars between 1926 and 1930. Historians keep registry lists of where every last one ended up. When a BMW M5 Touring enthusiast in the U.K., such as Top Gear’s Chris Harris, decides they want an E61 M5 Touring, they can almost rattle off which of the 222 built are still on the road and available. In fact, when Harris bought a used car, he later discovered it was the exact press vehicle he’d reviewed in 2007.
The E61 M5 Touring Is Only Perfect From Afar
Here in the U.S., BMW wagon fans talk about the V10-powered E61 M5 in hushed tones. It’s a sacred machine, the final analog super wagon, and theoretically BMW perfection. Perhaps that’s because few of us have had to work on one.
BMW’s 2005-2010 V10 is notoriously unreliable. It’s prone to rod bearing failure, which leads to catastrophic engine failure and can occur within 50,000 miles. This is likely because the oiling system can’t keep up with the 8,250 rpm redline. The result is that owners must perform a full engine tear down as preventive maintenance early in their car’s life.
In addition, BMW’s 1,600 psi oil-driven variable valve timing system (marketed as VANOS) uses rubber hoses that are prone to failure. This, of course, can starve the engine of oil and speed up rod bearing wear.
Finally, the SMG transmission has an Achilles heel. The electric motor which powers the hydraulic pump which shifts gears wears out rapidly. Specifically, its internal brushes fail. In short, the transmission can lose all hydraulic pressure, lock in gear, and leave the driver stranded.
The E61 M5 Touring Was A Piece Of Automotive History
BMW assumed North American drivers wouldn’t pay for a super wagon. The company was so sure of this that it never even bothered to offer an M5 Touring in the U.S. But the 50%+ Touring take rate for the G99 M5 proves the company was wrong. U.S. buyers love wagons.
Would the 2007–2010 E61 M5 Touring have been a good fit for U.S. enthusiasts? It has oodles of straight-line speed and plenty of room for the entire family with all their gear. Is it mechanically perfect? Far from. But the G99’s sales numbers—despite its complex drivetrain—prove that U.S. buyers will forgive some mechanical quirks.
There are many generations of M5 Touring that the U.S. missed out on. But the E61 M5 wasn’t just the final analog super wagon. It was peak analog super wagon, and missing out on it hurts a bit more.
Luckily, you can import any 25-year-old car to the United States and register it here. So mark your calendars: 2032 isn’t that far away.
Source: BMW, BMW Blog
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