BMW BLOG

These past few weeks have all been about the new generation BMW 5 Series due to launch in 2010. We have seen plenty of spy photos, from all the angles and most important, showing us all the future models…or at least most of them, the M5 won’t be out until 2012.

So what’s so special about these latest spy shots and why are we so excited? Simply one reason: these are the first photos showing us tiny bits of the new 5 Series interior. We have learned over the course of the last few months that the new interior design will resemble in many ways the one found in the recently launched 7 Series. Even though the spy photographers were insistent -it’s part of their job- the BMW engineers managed to somewhat cover some parts of the dashboard.

The gauge rings and “needles” are very similar, if not identical to the ones in the 7er which we can be all very grateful for; same applies to the gear shifter, even though not shown in our spy photos(more images can be seen at Carscoop). From this point on, it all gets a bit blurry and the BMW drivers are doing a great job covering some other parts. Zooming in one of the photos from Carscoop, we can see some of the controls on the steering wheel, but still unfortunately, blurry.

Moving out on the exterior, we’re starting to love the design lines more and more, despite the “funky camouflage”, we can still see the two metal creases running down the hood and meeting the headlights right before the grille. Similar white corona-rings as seen on the 5 GT appear on the Touring model as well. The wider twin kidney grille diffeentiates the 20011 5 Series from the front-end on the 7, clearing out a misconception that many people have had.

BMW has designed a new all-steel chassis for the new 5 Series and a weight increase concern has appeared among the BMW fans. But, the Munich based automaker states that by using some special techniques to process the steel – a multi phase steel (tubes are made of thinner steel layers reinforced with some other composites – making them lighter yet stronger than classic steel tubes), the weight is quite reduced compared to a classic steel frame.

So far, we’re liking what we see and we can certainly say that our recent front-end rendering is pretty close to the real deal.

[Source: Carscoop]