The BMW M5 is the original super sedan, it’s the car that showed the world just how much fun a sedan could actually be if you stuffed a great big engine in it. When the M5 first arrived in the mid ’80s, it was a revelation; a four-door family sedan that could keep up with Porsche 911s and Ferraris. Since then, every other premium brand has tried to replicate the success of the M5, to varying degrees of success. While other brands make brilliant super sedans/wagons, such as Mercedes-AMG and Audi, the M5 is the original.

In this new video from Lovecar, we get to see Tiff Needell drive and talk about each generation of BMW M5, from the original E28 all the way up to the new F90. It’s quite fascinating to see, as Needell has been racing and testing cars since before the original E28 M5 first debuted. So he’s seen the BMW M5 as a car evolve first-hand, throughout its history.

It’s also interesting to see how the M5 has changed throughout its life and generations. Each generation has decidedly different characteristics, with each model getting sharper and more capable. However, with each generation’s objective improvements, there’s been varying degrees of improvement in terms of subjective driving enjoyment. For instance, Needell notes how much more character the E28 BMW M5 has over the E34-gen that succeeded it, despite the latter being sharper and more dynamic.

The contrast between those original cars and the brand-new F90-gen M5 is fascinating. They’re obviously so different in terms of power, performance, technology and configuration but their fundamentals are the same. The BMW M5 was always about having impressive performance and dynamics in a car that was also comfortable, luxurious and capable of hauling the family around.

So when enthusiasts complain about the F90 M5 being too high-tech or not engaging enough, just point back to the E28 M5, with its ten-way electric seats or the E39 M5 with its double-glazed windows. M5s have always been as high-tech and luxurious as possible, just also with stonking performance and speed.