BMW 550e xDrive M Sport Pro - long-term review

“500 horsepower? Bloody hell, that’s as much as an E60 M5," whistles my mate Chris, who – as you may have gathered by the fact he uses phrases like ‘E60 M5’ in regular conversation – is very much a car-person.

And Chris, car-person that he is, is not wrong. The new 550e’s output is within just a few horsepower of the legendary V10-engined M5 of 2005 – the one born out of BMW’s F1 ventures with Williams, the one that revved past 8,000rpm, the one that broke quite a lot – and trumps it on a whole bunch of other metrics too.

The new hybrid 5 makes an extra 132lb ft, and – with four-wheel drive playing rear-drive – would dust the old-timer in a traffic-light drag race too, reaching 62mph nearly half a second quicker. It’s been a while since I’ve driven an E60 M5, but I’d wager the new car – with its instant hit of electric torque – will kill it on rolling acceleration, too.

Because holy heck, this 550e is a rapid car. I knew, with 500 horsepower on tap, it wasn’t going to be sluggish. I wasn’t prepared for just how un-sluggish. M-Division quick? No question. In Sport mode, it’s an absolute bullet-train of a thing, accruing pace in a fashion sufficiently addictive to have you googling ‘cheap house for sale near German autobahn’ as soon as you get home.

The 550e reminds me – in mile-crunching ability if not interior vibe – of a Bentley Continental: that ability to ruthlessly compress distance, to squash space, to make big miles disappear.

And, of course, the 550e absolutely walks the old M5 when it comes to economy and emissions. The E60 was rated at over 350g/km of CO2 (yikes), while the new car officially manages 19g/km (yikes, but in a different way).

Now, you may rightly point out that (a) no one ever bought an E60 M5 for its stellar economy, and also (b) almost no one will ever actually return 19g/km of CO2 from their 550e. But they pretty definitely won’t return 350g/km, which must represent some sort of progress.

There are, I admit, other Top Trumps categories where old car edges new. The V10 definitely made a more exciting noise, though I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the 550e’s straight-six soundtrack, even if it’s synthetically enhanced in parts.

And then there’s mass. The 550e weighs in almost half a tonne heavier than that E60 M5, which I suspect would make it a less playful thing around a track. But let’s be honest, how many owners of fast 5 Series ever spent much time on track? Fast 5s have always primarily been about crushing big miles on the road, and on that score the 550e is, well, crushing it.

It's also, by historical standards at least, not terrible value. A starting price near £80k is punchy, no question, but back in 2005, an E60 M5 would have cost you – adjusted for inflation – about £115,000. (Which is also the price of a new M5, which goes to prove… actually I’m not sure what it proves, but definitely something.)

The 550e, then, is a proper Q-car: super-saloon performance and true continent-swallowing ability in a (relatively) understated package. Next up, time to go swallow a continent…