BBC_Top_Gear_South_Africa_June_2017

BMW 5 SERIES
here is no person in South
Africa who suffers a
T
greater crush of
expectation in 2017 than
our terrifically dapper
Minister of Finance:
Malusi Gigaba. He must convince people, with
more money than they’ll ever be able to spend,
to transfer some of their breathtaking wealth
to South Africa. And at the moment, nobody’s
interested.
Malusi needs a miracle. Similarly, it’s the
unenviable position the luxury sedan finds
itself in during 2017, too. It also requires a
miracle, because people with more money than
sense, aren’t buying luxury cars with
four-doors anymore. They’re all purchasing
five-door SUVs. And for BMW’s 5 Series, that
is a rather huge problem.
For decades, it has been BMW’s most
important car. For professional automotive
engineers and badly dressed automotive
writers alike, in a moment of reflection and
unflinching honesty, when asked which is the
best car in the world, the answer has inevitably
been 5 Series. Fast yet smooth. Dynamically
rewarding. Sumptuously comfortable.
Elegantly restrained in appearance.
Unfortunately, none of this matters
anymore. Why? Because 5 Series lacks gravel
travel appropriate ground clearance and
styling reminiscent of a uranium fed 5-door
hatchback, it’s destined to be ignored. In the
late 1990s South Africa was the undisputed
destination for emerging market investment
capital and fourth-generation 5 Series was the
pinnacle of sub-limousine luxury car
ownership. In 2017, both are being tragically
disregarded. It’s a solemn time for South
Africa and the automotive world. Overpaid
consultants are presenting odious forecasting
charts in German automotive company
boardrooms, not so much predicting, but
confirming, for the death of sedans. But much
like South Africa, with its history of resilience
and courageous ability to always counter and
overwhelm the sceptics, 5 Series heroically
remains BMW’s profit pony, accounting for
25% of the company’s balance sheet black ink.
The seventh-generation 5 is (ironically)
closer to being a true 2/3rds 7-Series than
ever before. The only real difference between
the cars, despite a few millimetres of size and
some styling details, are their structures: 7
has traces of carbon in its frame; the seventh
5, only metal. It’s a collection of very special
metals, though, immaculately sourced and
formed, delivering a range of cars 100kg
lighter than their predecessors despite
carrying an impressive array of new
technologies, many of which are there to
counter your failings at the helm.
Despite most of its fundamental bits being
new, G30 5 Series is an alarmingly subtle
styling evolution over the F10 it replaces. It’s
certainly not reminiscent of the quantum
design leap which characterised E28
becoming E34 in the late 1980s.
The cabin’s ergonomics and interfacing is
tailored to people of my laughable smartdevice
ignorance, a swathe of haptic and
intuitive technologies, presented with great
modesty. BMW’s latest evolution of iDrive
boasts PlayStation controller-type feedback
and seamless menu interfacing. There’s even
gesture control, if the idea imitating a mad
amateur orchestra conductor, practising in
traffic, appeals to you.
There’s a ghost in the
machine, though. An
artificial driver amidst
the python-like looms
and wiring harnesses of
5 Series. An
autonomous-driving alter ego, capable of
safely piloting better than you. Only
insurance and legislative issues prevent this 5
Series from completely driving itself.
Although the autonomous system won’t loop
a traffic circle, I found it unnervingly capable
of tracking traffic at 120kph, with the
unflinching accuracy of an SAAF Mokopa
missile – once locked-on to a lead car ahead.
All the infotainment and driver assistance
technology is merely BMW being on-trend.
It’s not what 5 Series is supposed to be. This
is a car built to devour distances, the kind of
distances which convince people that
domestic flying is superior to driving. As
TopGear, we could never be agreeable to that
and BMW has ensured that you don’t ever
have to be, either.
In Germany, where you can drive very
civilly at 250kph, cars such as 5 Series are
true air-travel alternatives. Calculate the
compound time wastage of travelling to an
airport, checking-in, being inappropriately
touched by security and then waiting to fly…
And inevitably, an autobahn routed luxury
sedan of prodigious performance is often
quicker.
Admittedly the gravel travel ability and
pothole-proof suspension bits of a luxury
SUV make sense for detouring, but those
stability systems and active dampers
constantly heaving against the
hippopotamus-like centre of gravity are
annoying. German luxury SUVs are brilliantly
over-engineered but awfully blunt to drive.
“ I found it unnervingly
capable of tracking
traffic at 120km/h”
Until the M5, this is as
high up the ladder as the
5 Series goes
BMW’s in-line sixes have
gained much provenance
along with performance
88 JUNE 2017