Glimpses Of The New BMW M5 Are Hiding In This Video

At this point, it feels like BMW’s teaser campaign for the upcoming seventh-generation M5 has been going on forever, but we’re getting closer and closer to seeing the car for real. The latest part of BMW’s programme of carrot-dangling is a video showing the car, in both saloon and Touring form, undergoing some high-performance testing in a variety of settings.

The cars are shown skidding on a racetrack and, erm, skidding on a frozen lake. It seems BMW’s keen to emphasise that the new M5 will, in fact, go sideways. The video gives us our best look yet at the final car, albeit still in fully disguised prototype form, and – joy of joys – it looks as if BMW has resisted the urge to give it one of the enormous snouts that afflict most other current M cars. The grille still looks slightly bigger than the standard car, and obviously, the body’s been pumped up and widened, but we could be in for one of the most restrained-looking M models since… well, the last M5, actually.

Confirmation of this seems to come via some blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glances at some design sketches and concept renderings of the car. We’re particularly interested in the very brief look at the front of a gold-coloured car that looks almost production-ready. It seems to confirm what we can gather from the prototypes – a slightly enlarged grille and aggressive front bumper, but overall a much more discreet look than the in-yer-face vibes of things like the XM and M3.

We still don’t have anything in the way of official tech details, but we know it’s going to be a four-wheel drive plug-in hybrid. It's likely to share its powertrain with the controversial XM, potentially matching the 738bhp offered by that car’s range-topping Label version.

The other big news is the return of the M5 Touring, a bodystyle that’s previously only appeared on the E34 and E61 generations. For the first time, the Touring will be offered to customers in North America as well as Europe.

We expect a full reveal of the car to happen very soon, potentially over the summer. Until then, we’ll be fully hooked on BMW’s seemingly endless teaser programme.