This 20-Year-Old BMW 5 Series Wagon Is An Undercover M5 Touring

BMW brought the M5 Touring to America. It’s the same 717-horsepower, apex predator performance beast as the M5, but in wagon form. And car enthusiasts love a good wagon. Need proof? The M5 Touring is currently outselling the standard M5.

Offering an M5 Touring variant is rare for BMW. This is the first time BMW has offered a wagon version of the M5 since the E61 bowed out in 2010. And the E61 was the only Touring variant in the previous five generations before the current model. For much of the 21st century, if you wanted an M5 wagon, you had to build your own. One Canadian owner, whose vehicle was recently up for auction on Bring a Trailer, did precisely that.

This M5 Touring Is Based On An E39 5 Series Wagon

Fixing custom bodywork on an extant M5 sedan would have been difficult and looked wonky. This owner created an M5 Touring by swapping components from a donor E39 M5 into a 2003 525i wagon. The wagon packs the E39 M5’s S62 4.9-liter V8, which put out 394 hp and 362 lb-ft of torque when new. It pairs that engine with a six-speed manual transmission. The wagon gets the M5’s limited-slip differential, front subframe, front suspension, and rear sway bar. The owner kept the stock self-leveling rear suspension from the 2003 525i.

The owner also used M5 components to help the vehicle look the part. On the exterior, it has an M5 front bumper cover, M5 side mirrors, and 18-inch Style 65 alloy wheels. They swapped in the heated, power-adjust Caramel Nappa Heritage leather front seats from the donor M5. The owner left the folding rear seats stock but had them color-dyed to match the front seats. It also has a 185-mph M-branded speedometer.

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This Custom M5 Touring Has Some Performance Modifications

The owner also made some additional performance upgrades. The wagon received a Dinan high-performance ECU calibration. The owner also added a Dinan axle-back dual exhaust system (with the trunk floor modified to accommodate it), a Dinan short-shifter, and a Dinan front strut tower brace. The owner did not modify the stereo, allowing you to truly take it back to 2003 with a pixelated stereo display and a trunk-mounted six-disc CD changer. You’ll have to source your own copy of “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.”

This Custom M5 Is No Longer For Sale, Sadly

Building a custom M5 wagon is a true passion project. And as such, we expect the owner may have spent more building this niche “what if” project than it would ultimately be worth on the open market (especially with 120,000 M5 owner miles on it). The BAT closed, and the M5 wagon won’t be changing hands as the top bid of $28,250 did not hit the reserve.

Source: Bring a Trailer