The 2019 BMW M5 was finally reviewed by probably the harshest voice out there, in the automotive journalism business. Jeremy Clarkson formerly of Top Gear and now part of Amazon’s Grand Tour show took it for a spin and while he delivered a great speech about how good the M5 was, the end result of his review of the car wasn’t nearly what anyone expect, the Briton ending up choosing a different car altogether.
Yes, the BMW M5 segment on the Grand Tour was mixed with a bit dedicated to yet another marvelous bit of engineering, also starting off life as a BMW. The Alpina B5 BiTurbo was included in this segment and it definitely came out to win any sort of comparison against the M5. And while some were surprised to see Clarkson giving the B5 the win, I wasn’t. That’s because if I learnt something doing this job for so long, it’s that your taste in cars changes over years.
While Jeremy might’ve chosen the more stern and track prone M5 some years ago, this time he went for the more comfortable and similarly effortless Alpina, simply because his taste in cars has changed. It’s rather pointless to compare these 600 HP beasts too, as they cater to different types of people from the get go, and that explains how come Alpina still has a business case these days – as I know some people are baffled by it.
That said, however, the M5 did showcase its might on the track, later on, when the uber-saloon was put to the test on the Grand Tour proving grounds. That’s where it managed to tie a Porsche 911 GT3 RS and that’s impressive as hell, considering how different the two are. Now I would like to see the M5 Competition doing this track test as well, to see how much faster it would be but I’m satisfied with this result too in the meantime.
