My Weekend with the G99 M5 Touring (Swiss Alps Driving Review w/ Videos)

I waited with my report a bit until I had a few more videos up. Now, the first four are on YouTube with the next four arriving shortly.

Late last year I had the opportunity to spend a weekend with the G90 M5 and I shared my thoughts here and here. But for a mountain pass — or touge, as people like to call it now — aficionado, it felt wrong not to whip it across the Alps. Fortunately, this generation is available as Touring again, so I couldn’t miss the chance.

So I didn’t.

To me, the G9x M5 is one of the least offensive-looking recent Bimmers (except for that infernal flap in the front left wing). The Touring’s tail-light graphic is a touchless aggressive than the saloon’s, but it is still good-looking (but obviously not as handsome as the E61 M5 Touring — unbiased opinion of a former E61 M5 Touring owner). It really dawned on me during recording at the Nufenen Pass summit.

BMW Switzerland has specced Frozen Deep Grey Metallic, They seem obsessed with matte paints — M8 Comp Gran Coupe, M3 Comp, M2, and now this). I’d like to point out two other bits of equipment: One is the panoramic sun roof. This is noteworthy because the registration papers list a kerb weight of 2604kg (that’s according to EU norms — full tank + 75kg driver) and it’s probably that big heavy piece of glass pushing the figure to 2.6 tons. If you think that’s a lot, just weight for the report on the XM.

The other is far more pleasant: The M5 Touring’s wheels are clad in Pirelli P Zero R (*) tyres. The R is a rather new compound slotting in between the PZ4/PZ5 and the Corsa. What better tyre to have in these apocalyptic conditions?

We’re in the middle of summer — I mentioned that, apocalyptic weather and all — and the mountain passes are open, so I go for the Driving Distilled loop — Gotthard, Nufenen, Grimsel, Susten. Four passes, all above 2000m asl, all with their own stories.

Gotthard North, 2107m asl

Summer is great — yeah, right, summer, look at the torrential rain — because the passes are open, but that also means tourists — lots of them. Some are just passing through, others want a slice of the road themselves. The issue with Gotthard is that you get both types as some just want to dodge the queue at the tunnel by crawling over the top.

So usually, there’s not much driving to be done here. And the road itself doesn’t help: Built to beat the terrain into submission, not flow with it. It’s wide with only a few turns.

Yes, I feel like an idiot, complaining about a road being too good. Let’s just move on.

And Gotthard wasted no time making me eat my words. Boring road? Yes. Boring drive? The weather had other ideas.

Gotthard South, 2107m asl

I’m sure some of you folks have played Assassin’s Creed. If so, you’re probably familiar with the loading screen: Just the character, surrounded by inescapable, endless fog. Turns out it exists in real life too: The map just refuses to load with the added caveat that the drops and sheer cliffs are still there.

Visibility: 0%. Hurt-potential: 100%

Lucky me, I was testing a second camera setup, and I think it caught Armageddon nicely.

Nufenen East, 2478m asl

I like Nufenen. It’s only open for about three months a year, and the moment you turn off the Gotthard road the atmosphere shifts: serene, almost surreal. A few villages at the bottom, then a wide green and mostly empty valley that gradually tightens into slopes leading up to Switzerland’s second-highest pass.

At the summit you’re often greeted by wild but oddly friendly — and given the number of hard-accelerating cars blasting past — not easily impressed ibex. As Swiss as it gets.

I pick up the pace as the road meanders up the valley, providing not much of a challenge to either car or tyres, even though it’s still raining heavily.

Higher up, the asphalt gives way to concrete slabs, adding a jarring rhythm to the climb. With the surface still wet, the Pirellis don’t require much persuasion to let go. I’m in MDM/4WD Sport all day, in slow hairpins trying to get an understanding of how the car (and the software) reacts when it gets slidey.

But as the road dries, so does my courage. I really don’t want to fight the Pirellis in the dry on roads like these.

Nearing the summit the fog returns. This is fantastic, why wouldn’t you go for a drive in weather like this?

Nufenen West, 2478m asl

Nufenen West is an entirely different beast. No less beautiful, mind you, but way less patient — no time to take a breather. Not long ago I was sitting in an Alpine A110 S, chasing a G87 M2 and it was hilariously good fun.

This time I’m alone, and the M5 Touring is not exactly waltzing through the tight downhill hairpins like the Alpine did. Understeer? Not really, but not as willingly turning as the goat-like Alpine (so it took a 380km trip to discover that a light, mid-engined car is more willing to turn than a

three-ton behemoth? Get the Pulitzer ready!)

Don’t, however, for a second think that the M5 is clumsy. Far from it, it might not be its favourite activity, but it’ll not shy away from filling the little Alpine’s rear-view mirror — and not only on the straights.

What really ruins a drive on these roads is a lazy steering rack: Dead centre (Oh, you need a written application a week ahead?), overly sensitive to varying camber (Nevermind, let’s go this way instead) or bad tyres (I took your steering wheel input as merely a suggestion). Not the M5, though, and certainly not on these Pirellis.

Speaking of which: for once the tyres aren’t inflated to oblivion. Usually these cars show up at 3 bar cold, and with pressure dropping at altitude they end up feeling like monster-truck tyres. (Okay, they don’t look like it, but the eggshell-driving sensation is real.)

The steep hairpins aren’t exactly pleasant, but once the road opens up, the M5 comes alive. That was a good one!

Grimsel South, 2163m asl



Hairpins are boring. And coming from the tourist magnet that is Furka Pass (Bond and all), hairpins are all you get and you’ll miss the fantastic bit from Oberwald to Gletsch (that technically is not part of Grimsel).

It’s there that I realise that the suspension setup must be too soft. Normally we only talk about damper stiffness because manufacturers have sorted spring rates quite well (or maybe they haven’t if you look at how much Porsche fiddles with the spring rates on their GT cars). But this is different.

There are some cobbled sections, remains of the old road, and every crossing sends a hefty jolt through the car: We’re hitting the bump stops. Now, I’m sure the chassis can take it, but it’s unpleasant nonetheless. I can’t help but wonder if BMW M will adjust the suspension tune when the LCI is due.

Aside from those few cringy moments, this is great fun. Oh, and the aforementioned hairpins? Much easier to endure in a RWD or rear-biased AWD car.

Grimsel North, 2163m asl



Traffic is always annoying on the passes, but somehow it’s especially annoying on Grimsel North.

Long stretches where you can’t overtake because of poor visibility, interrupted by long stretches where you can’t overtake because of “conservative” speed limits, sprinkled with long stretches where you can’t overtake because the authorities seemed to have scored a sale on white paint and decided to draw solid white lines everywhere.

Grimsel North is basically an exercise in patience — and acceptance because you might roll into Innertkirchen behind the same dawdler you’ve been following from the top.

Not today though. The weather’s been bad, so the road is empty. It’s still an exercise in patience, though, with plenty of sections where the car’s just rolling — Switzerland, so 80 kph, baby!.

But there’s something to look forward to.

Susten West, 2224m asl



Felt bad for me on Grimsel North? Don’t. Susten West makes up for it. Even harder to overtake but infinitely more rewarding. Think of it as a climb in three acts:

Act 1 — Warm-up: The road climbs gently, weaving through small villages, every now and then tossing in a few interesting bends, teasing glimpses of what’s ahead. By the time you reach Obermaad — the last village — you’re fully dialled in.

Act 2 — Dedication: No more interruptions, just driving. A few slow hairpins, but mostly flowing corners, tight enough to load up chassis and tyres. The M5? Unfazed so far, but we’re not there yet. Past the Feldmoos bus stop hairpin comes a fast, flowing section with the perfect kind of bends: still within the posted limits, but you need real faith in the car’s front end. Needless to say, it’s the perfect chase section too. The M5? Still unfazed.

Act 3 — The Cherry on Top (or cherry to the top?): You arrive at the Steingletscher hairpin (or the Murcielago hairpin). From there it’s the final push. The hard work is done, the reward in your hands: A view back down the entire valley you just drove up. and they way you drove up here. Unless, of course, the fog rolls in — which it often does, without warning.

#WorthIt

Susten East, 2224m asl



No more angry driving. Two hairpins at the top, mirrored by two-ish hairpins at the bottom. In between a smoothly flowing ribbon of asphalt tracing the northern flank of the valley — perfect for building momentum, and confidence in the front axle (the rear’s done for today).

I don’t enjoy this stretch in fast turbocharged cars. There’s nowhere to accelerate, you’re just rolling, but since there’s also no meaningful engine-braking, you’re on the pedal all the way down. The petrol-hybrid M5 mitigates this with a dollop of regen-braking (Oh, God, I’m a hybrid-apologist now) and thus allows you to play this little game: Keep the car pinned at 80 kph all the way down, without touching any of the pedals.

Most of the time this is no problem at all, but there are a few fast bends — blind, so no cutting — that demand real trust. In the nat-asp GT3 and the E61 M5 (engine braking is plentiful) you could easily glide down at speed without touching the throttle or brakes. Silly games, maybe, but driving any road after Susten West is like trying to sing after Matt Munroe’s On Days Like These (for younger readers: the song in the original Italian Job intro).

The M5? Still untroubled. In fact, I catch up to a 458 near the bottom whose driver unfortunately is not in the mood to play. I’d like to think that it would have been embarrassing, for him.

Closing words

Whenever people hear I had the M5 Touring on test, the question comes up: This or the G8x M3? Easy one — The M3. But is anyone really surprised? The M3 has always been the touge-ist’s choice. (Oh God, what have I become?).

The M3’s chassis is peak M wizardry. More compact, less heavy (see what I did there?), and with all the torque in the world to catapult itself wherever it pleases.

Leave aside the magnificent roar of the V10 — a reason all its own to come here — and my picks for these roads would still have been the E46 and E92 M3, each with their own unforgettable soundtrack. So nothing new there.

What sets the M5 apart from other super-salloons (or super-estates), though, is this: it may not spend its weekends up here, only waiting to embarrass more powerful or more expensive cars. But provoked it, and it will — happily. The G9x is no exception.

Is it my favourite M5? No (as if anything could beat the E61 — too much?). Am I willing to accept it as an M5 based on how it goes and drives? Absolutely.

Do you?