BMW F10 modern 5-series drivers and fun Club

F10 520d SE LONGTERMERS / #Jaguar / #BMW

How much more fuel do you suppose is consumed through running your heated seats on full blast all the time? The recent colder weather has meant that the Five Series has driven around west Oxfordshire for nearly a month with heated seats and steering wheel on full roast, and I think the resultant 37.6 is the lowest average figure I’ve seen since we bought the car. The only reason the overall economy is actually 39.1mpg is due to a lastminute return day trip to Sudbury the day before I submitted this copy to the editor, which has had the effect of dragging up the average a tad.

Full anorak-spec this observation may be, but a ten percent difference in terms of inferior economy (or thereabouts) is a marked drop. I doubt there’s another reason for it, and next weekend we’re off to North Wales again for our annual freezing-our-bits-off- because-we-have-children shindig at Betws-y-Coed (there’s a Winter Wonderland there every year), and given that I like to travel in a toasty oven these days, and especially at this time of year, it’ll be mildly interesting to see what kind of economy we get.

Enough maths though, what else have we been up to? Well I’ve driven a Jaguar, around a year after I said no to the last one. That car was the XE, which turned out to be too small, not special enough inside and despite the 3 Series-esque road manners, not quite what I was looking for. Shock horror of course, because I ended up buying a Five Series. Ergo trying the XE really wasn’t giving Jaguar a fair chance. The XF would have been a far more suitable foe, ignoring for a moment the alluring finance deals which supported XE sales at the time.

Without boring you with the logistics, I was able to spend some quality time with the XF, the idea being (risky I know) to ascertain whether or not it would indeed have been a better fit. And the short answer? No.

On castor-spec 17-inch alloys it looks too bloated, the rear deck especially sitting very heavily over the wheels. Square-on from the rear, there’s a distinct muffin effect, too (i.e a narrow track). The F10 runs equal diameter rims of course (at least it does at the moment) but the styling is better resolved, possibly through being a more traditional three-box shape.

The XF’s frontal aspect is spot on though. It’s as you walk around the car that is starts to unravel.

So you climb inside, and this is where a Jaguar is supposed to excel, right? No again I’m afraid. The days of the low-slung and snug, highdashboard, hide and wood Jaguar interiors which I used to own back in the day have long gone. No bad thing some would say, but the honest truth in my view is that, compared to the driver-centric and well-finished premium feel to the BMW’s interior, the open-architecture fascia was in stark contrast to the BMW and for the wrong reasons. Firstly because this is the latest iteration of the #Jaguar-XF – not an update of the previous model, but a whole new version. Hence you would expect it to match the F10, at least.

When the G30 goes on general sale in the UK in February, it’s going to date the Jaguar’s interior something chronic (plus the tech in the Jaguar isn’t too hot either, but we’ll get to that). And secondly because the interior in general, with thin and brittle-feeling paddle-shifters, ditto the electronic parking brake actuator and even more thin, brittle and poor-quality seat height adjustment, plus an impressive looking aluminium rising rotary gear selector which unfortunately then sits in a sea of plastic, felt quite inferior to the #BMW interior. And let’s not forget, this is where you spend most of your car time.

If this sounds quite harsh then it’s fair to also point out that the car did grow on me a little during the two days we had it, but nowhere near enough to be convinced by it. And I’m also acutely aware that I do like a bit of ‘wood’ trim in my cars. The standard BMW trim is also pretty awful in my view (and the metallic-look plastic in the M-Sport offerings is even worse) but it’s at least underpinned by some better thought-out design. Who, for example, decided to locate the driver assistance buttons in the XF down on the lower right-hand side of the dashboard by the driver’s knee, where they are almost completely out of sight and difficult to spot without considerable determination whilst on the move? And when you do activate the system, the tell-tale icon in the instrument cluster is apologetically small. Driver assistance? Hardly. In terms of overall tech, BMW wins again. Not in the availability of tech, as the Jaguar also offers up lane guidance, radar cruise, cameras and so on, but in how the tech is deployed. The iDrive pro-nav in the Five Series, as I’ve said before, is a fantastic piece of kit. As is the HUD. The Jaguar offerings however, lag behind. The touch-screen interface lacks appeal, the graphics are outmoded and the presence of a memory card for the nav’s maps in the armrest had me mentally winding the clock back ten years.

Jaguar sold a little over 80k cars in 2015 (contributing around 20 percent to the overall JLR sales figures once the approximately 400k annual Land Rover sales are taken into account). BMW shifted 1.9 million. So naturally there’s a monumental investment hole. One does wonder how the gap will be closed on this evidence. In terms of the drive, bearing in mind I’d already been underwhelmed by the looks and the interior, the abrupt quality to the auto shift (which is the same ZF unit I believe, albeit with Jaguar-specific calibration) no matter the drive mode selected at the time, was the final nail in the coffin.

The XE did this too and I didn’t like it then, either. Ride quality was excellent though, wind and road noise well-suppressed, and the rotating air vents are amusing pieces of theatre (even if the central vents are now bog-standard items on this latest version). These positives weren’t enough to tip the balance however. So no, I didn’t fancy it, and the F10 is definitely the better car, at least from my perspective. There’s a video review of the XF on my YouTube channel. And I’ll apologise in advance for the hat…

TECHNICAL #BMW-F10 / #BMW-520d-SE / #BMW-520d-SE-F10 / #BMW-520d-F10 / #BMW-5-Series / #BMW-5-Series-F10
YEAR: #2016
MILEAGE THIS MONTH: 1319
TOTAL MILEAGE: 11,878
MPG THIS MONTH: 39.1
COST THIS MONTH: Nil

F10 520d SE

I knew I was going too fast as the nose of the M4 approached the apex. I was going to run out of track. In a heartbeat, cutting the corner a little more seemed the sensible thing to do. Severe of kerb and blind on the approach, I’ve driven this track enough to know what lay beyond, but even so in that moment I wasn’t sure quite how much road I would have left if this went wrong.

In the next breath, I knew I’d misjudged it. The front rode the kerb well enough without displacing the chassis more than expected, but then a thousandth of a second later, the rear hit the kerb right at its most extreme and rather than enjoying that balanced feel of front and rear in unison, just on the edge and peeking over the point of no return, it all started to unravel with the rear of the car rotating into the air, the force through the steering wheel increasing, the windscreen full of trees and not the corner which I’d just been looking at, and with said bend now coming at us through the passenger window…

Those of a certain age and a gaming inclination will recall the earliest days of the driving sim, and those halcyon days of the mid-‘90s, by when the earliest games (impressive but hampered by the limitations of the hardware) had evolved into something more realistic with the dawn of the modern console era, are the starting point of the evolutionary process which has brought us to where we are today.

The likes of TOCA Touring Cars and Colin McRae Rally, plus of course Gran Turismo and later, the Microsoft Forza series laid the ingredients for the successful formula, and today’s iterations are something to behold. Virtual Reality is the latest thing in gaming. But if you’re like me, you’ll feel that sitting in a room wearing a headset and headphones which isolate you from the surrounding environment (not to mention looking like a dork) is a tad anti-social. I like to be aware of what’s around me, hence I stick to the 32-inch monitor. But games tell you they offer a realistic interpretation of the art of driving so is there any truth in that, or is it a load of tyre smoke and mirrors?

The first thing to understand, whilst I’m hacking around the Nordschleife in my virtual BMW M4 (that wasn’t an actual #BMW-M4-Coupe-F82 I was referring to at the start, do you think #BMW had taken leave of its senses!?), is I’m not sat in one of these gaming rigs which wouldn’t look out of place in McLaren F1’s R&D studio. Some people do spend thousands on these setups, but for that kind of cash I’d rather buy an actual car and do some track days. But at the same time, I’m not sat there on a cardboard box twirling a plastic plate, so some cash has been spent beyond the presence of a sturdy, reclining office leather chair…

We have a force feedback base by Thrustmaster, a TX to be precise at about 200 quid, to which is attached a 22-inch TM racing rim. Leather covered and equipped with tactile metal paddles and a solid metal centre, this adds weight and realism through avoiding feeling too plasticky or ‘light’ in your hands. And another 100 quid. Next, my feet drop onto the cool metal plate of my inverted #T3PAPRO pedals, offering up full threepedal heel-n-toe control and a socalled canonical brake pedal mod, which allows proper resistance to be felt underfoot and hence, the judging of braking effort up to the point of lockup. Thrustmaster will relieve you of £150 for those.

The last item of what I consider the essential equipment without resorting to one of those rigs (and discounting the obvious requirement for a decent television or monitor, in my case a 32- inch HD 1080p LG bought used off eBay for 50 notes) is the TH8A shifter, again by Thrustmaster, and again fostering realism through allowing full manual gear changes when combined with the aforementioned pedal set.

Seven-speed capable, cool to the touch at least at the start of a gaming session and with an exposed gate, it’s a beautifully tactile addition and really sets the rest of the kit off a treat. And another 120 quid or so.

The total cost is somewhere around £570, to which we need to add around 50 quid for a decent set of headphones. With other sundries, we’re at 600 quid before factoring in the cost of the actual console. Xbox One bought new upon release, we’re at nearly a grand for the whole lot. Barmy, but still less than the £3.5k and up for one of those rigs. So, in short, it’d better be worth it…

Back to the Hohe Acht turn-in around the latter half of the ‘Ring (on a rise, blind entry, falling camber on the exit, the fella who drew this place had a really sick sense of humour). I’d gone in far too fast, clipped the kerbs and immediately sent the inside rear into the air… Travelling too quickly on increasing opposite lock and with the outside wheel scrubbing the surface, lifting off now would spell disaster. Split-second analysis of the decision (hindsight is a wonderful thing) resulted in a little more power being deployed, and in a nanosecond we’re broadside on the track as the inside rear regains its useless purchase on the Tarmac. And Wippermann is now looming in the side windows. Hmm…

At least it’s a right-hander, just about. As was the last corner, so we’re heading in vaguely the right direction. What to do? Drop anchor and hope enough speed is lost before the passenger side smashes into the Armco, or try to drive out of it? How to even try to drive out of it? Figuring that if this goes pear-shaped all I’ll lose is my pride and I won’t actually die, I work the situation. Modulating the power (coughs and crackles audible from the exhaust) but fighting the steering all the time, I twirl the wheel with such force my bottle of (thankfully, unopened) Dr Pepper falls off the table whilst I whoop far too loudly. The outside kerb of Wippermann is almost upon us but a combination of lost speed, reduced torque and a shallower steering angle scamper us around in a manner which almost implies pre-planning. My heart-rate says different. My wife looks up briefly from what she’s doing, shakes her head in amusement at my “THIS IS AWESOME” exclamation and returns to her task.

The M4, with not a mark anywhere on it, continues on its way up the road. The next lap (still with the tyre marks showing on the surface through Hohe Acht – a nice touch) is a good deal less eventful and by the end of the second lap, the tyres are shot and we need fuel too. But my mind tells me that was epic and a very realistic modelling of an M4’s behaviour in extremis.

But all this is supposition unless one has some actual real-world experience of the Nordschleife, not to mention your chosen wheels. So what are my credentials? An E46 320d which was collected new as a company car in Brussels years ago, and handed back two years later with 100km on the clock and decidedly second hand, gave me a few tastes of life around the ‘Ring. White-knuckled runs (bearing in mind company cars weren’t allowed to do such things if one listened to HR) and some interesting tussles with a muppet in an Opel Manta convinced me to get out whilst the going was good. So after four or five visits over a 12 month period, never once visiting the Armco, witnessing the increasing madness of some people and stringing together a circa ten-minute lap (in an E46 #BMW-320d-E46 , don’t forget) I declared the place ticked off my bucket list and haven’t been back since.

Not physically anyway. But the number of virtual miles I’ve completed around that track would likely run into thousands, and it’s now gotten to the point that I can replay a lap in my head, every corner entry point, clipping point and track position on the exit logged in my brain on a virtual, rotating 3D image of the place. Whether that ever translates into a decent actual lap, I’m not sure I want to try and find out.

And the M4? Well okay there’s some artistic licence at play here because I’ve not actually driven an #BMW-M4 as yet (and if anybody from BMW is reading this, I’d be more than happy to remedy the situation, and we don’t even have to go to the Nordschleife either). But time spent in an F80 M3 last year represents the next best thing, and whilst the ‘Ring wasn’t the stage for that experience, the noise, the feel and response and the gusto in evidence during the miles I drove the car on the public roads have stuck in my mind.

I can therefore declare that Assetto Corsa, the game in question, is very realistic. Sound-wise, the game is spot on. Oh I know the M3 and M4 pairing have received a load of stick in the press for not sounding as good as the E90 generation, but that’s like criticising the Euro Fighter for not sounding quite as evil as the Vulcan bomber. Doesn’t mean it’s any less capable of ruining your day should the need arise.

So the virtual M4 sounds pretty good, at least in terms of matching the real version. The creators have even successfully managed to model the interior, although as usual the lack of a HUD frustrates (other cars in the game get one). As for the handling, the one thing the game doesn’t model is weather beyond a little mist or fog, so the M4’s supposed spiky handling on the limit in damp conditions can’t be explored (a pity, one may have been able to learn to a certain extent, and in controlled conditions, how to drive around it).

We can still comment on the dry handling though. So get the chassis loaded-up in a turn, now adjust the balance with a little more throttle, feel the rear start to slip. No need for corrective lock, at this point the rear is turning the car with the fronts pointing at zero degrees. Hold this attitude for as long as the corner lasts and the M4 arcs around gracefully; a mournful wail from the tyres filling your world. Allow some more power and the feeling of balance remains (remembering we are using a force feedback wheel, which accurately mimics steering and chassis loading, even if the fixed seat doesn’t) whilst the rear now slides out a little. This is where the simulation really starts to tell. One has to know exactly how much corrective lock to apply. Too little and the car will slide further outwards until it runs out of road and you crash into the barriers on the inside of the turn. Too much and the slide ends abruptly. From there it’s almost inevitable that you’ll nose it at speed into the opposite barriers on the outside of the turn. Get it wrong and you’ll tut-tut, press restart and try over. Get it right and you’re convinced you’ll never get it wrong, and you’re off to try it again at the next corner…

Perhaps you can’t afford an M3. Or an M4. Or a 1M which is also modelled in the game and unnervingly accurate with its wailing straight-six and spin-in-its-own-length handling. I know I can’t. So for many, the possibilities offered up by a good driving sim are intriguing, and if you’ve not tried it, I urge you to do so.

As for the 520d, no I wouldn’t dare attempt to take this one around the ‘Ring because it’s my own car! We’ve been to North Wales again this month though, and hacking across country from Shrewsbury and then out into the sticks up the A5 with the heated seats and wheels going full blast and -3°C outside (it was -7°C the following morning!), plus some decent toons on the hi-fi was a very pleasurable experience. I’ve said before that travelling at night in the F10 is a very pleasurable way of putting distance behind you and that doesn’t change with familiarity. One assumes the same sense of well-being will be evident in the G30 when it arrives. We spent a pleasant couple of days in Betws-y-Coed, nosing around the local shops and generally having a good time, and I spent far too much money in the model railway place.

Again. Then the time came to leave and as night approached we scampered south back along the A5, the sun setting rapidly to our right as night crept over the hills, turning the landscape from green, through husky greys to darker browns before blackness and night enveloped us silently. Mercifully free of traffic, and hence cracking on whenever I had the chance, we made good time on the return trip and the nigh-on 40mpg returned by the B47 despite the aforementioned heated occupants proves that modern engines, for all their efficiency and as I alluded to last month, are better with more demanding usage than just crawling around town.

CAR: #BMW-F10 / #BMW-520d-SE / #BMW-520d-SE-F10 / #BMW-520d-F10 / #BMW /

YEAR: #2016
MILEAGE THIS MONTH: 897
TOTAL MILEAGE: 12,775
MPG THIS MONTH: 39.6
COST THIS MONTH: Nil

THE FIFTH ELEMENT Schmiedmann’s 532hp F10 S5 / #BMW

With its F10 S5, Schmiedmann has unlocked all the potential hidden within the #BMW-550i-F10 and created a bit of a beast… Words: Elizabeth de Latour. Photos: Schmiedmann.

F10 S5 Schmiedmann’s 532hp super saloon

The F10 #BMW-550i is unquestionably a modern muscle car. It’s big, it’s got a 4.4-litre, twin-turbo V8 and it’s fast. Not M5 fast but, with 407hp and 443lb ft of torque on tap, it’s certainly not a slow machine by any standard. There’s a but coming, though, and that’s to do with the N63 engine because, much like its smaller, turbocharged straightsix cousin, it’s an engine with plenty more to give if you’re up to the task of giving it a little bit of attention and Schmiedmann is definitely up to that particular task. The Danish BMW specialist is a multi-talented one-stop shop, able to supply replacement OE parts, offer servicing and repairs and it also carries a huge range of aftermarket parts so it was really spoilt for choice when it came to creating its S5 demo car and the Schmiedmann team really went to town on this build.

With that twin-turbo V8 at their disposal it’s no surprise that the engine has received plenty of attention but what is a surprise is just how much work has actually gone into it. You might be thinking that a remap would suffice, as that would give you some impressive gains, but that wouldn’t have done for Schmiedmann, the guys there are petrolheads after all, and when you’re building a company demo car you really want to show off your skills. That’s why this car has been fitted with Schmiedmann by Turbo.dk Signature Stage 2 turbos, upgraded standard turbos designed to cope with and produce a lot more power. They boast 15T CNC-milled 48/68mm compressor wheels, which are substantially bigger than the standard 42/56mm items, bigger turbine shafts, upgraded wastegate bushes, upgraded bearings and the turbo housings have also been modified. To go along with the uprated turbos, the chargecoolers have been equipped with a 75% larger radiator, and there’s also a set of Schmiedmann by Supersprint downpipes and a Schmiedmann by Supersprint exhaust system made from micro sandblasted stainless steel, with purposeful Schmiedmann-designed black, double-layer tailpipes.

All these mods needed the right performance software to accompany them, but that proved to be a lot more difficult than you might imagine. “The software was actually the biggest challenge of the build,” explains Schmiedmann’s Martin Thorup.

“When we had all the hardware ready the only thing we needed in order to get the power out was the ECU tuning – the car has a water-cooled Continental MSD85.0 ECU – but we found out that no tuner we know could get access to this ECU so they could reprogram it to our hardware changes. We tried to contact tuners all over the world but the answer was always the same: “It’s not possible, the ECU is blocked by a code that nobody can crack yet”. There was one famous German tuning company that claimed that they could do it, so we sent them the ECU but they also had to give up.

We then found out that almost all tuners worldwide got the reading and programming tool from a company in Switzerland. After speaking with a Danish tuner that had a good connection with the company in Switzerland, they sent two staff members over to Denmark to try to crack the code in our F10 S5 but they couldn’t and also had to give up.


“Now it seemed our only option was to change the hardware back to standard, and install a tuning box; that would bring about 65hp more than standard, but we wanted to hit at least 500hp. Then we got an idea: we called our business friends at Tuningbox in Belgium, and asked them if we could buy an “open” standard Tuningbox for an F10 550i that we would be able to program individually for the hardware changes we’d made on the car. They agreed and also sold us a programming tool for the Tuningbox; the S5 was then placed on the dyno and adjusted by the Danish tuner in co-operation with Tuningbox in Belgium by remote.” The herculean effort that Schmiedmann went to in order to get the software working with the mods on the car was worth it, as the end result of all that work is an amazing 532hp accompanied by a mammoth 563lb ft of torque, huge gains over stock and just huge numbers that push the Schmiedmann S5 into M5 performance territory. “But there is no doubt that the engine and the hardware have potential for much more the day when the ECU code gets cracked,” says Martin, “and we can program a lot more engine parameters,” at which point the S5 will become even more of a beast…

Power, as they say, is nothing without control, and while the F10 is a decent handling machine out of the box, it’s not exactly a sports car and throwing an additional 125hp at a chassis that was unprepared would leave things in a bit of a mess, so Schmiedmann has ensured that its S5 stops and handles as well as it goes.

The standard suspension has been replaced with a Bilstein B16 coilover kit, which offers a wide range of height and damping adjustment, resulting in not only much-improved body control but also allowing the Schmiedmann team to deal with the F10’s gappy arches, giving the S5 a serious drop. The brakes, too, have been attended to and the boat has been well and truly pushed out here, with a Schmiedmann six-pot BBK mounted up front with massive Zimmerman 400x36mm floating discs while at the rear a set of Zimmerman sport brake discs have been fitted in the stock size, as they’re still seriously hefty items on the 550i, and the brake calipers have been painted in Phoenix yellow to match the fronts.


When it comes to styling it’s fair to say that the F10 isn’t a bad-looking car but there’s certainly room for improvement if you want to make it stand out, so the warehouse was duly raided in order to give the S5 a far more menacing look and one more befitting of something so powerful. Up front you’ll find an F10 M5 front bumper with the 550’s foglights removed and coded out, and this is matched with a pair of M5 front wings with Schmiedmann S5 vents.

Motorsport II sideskirts have been fitted and further enhanced with the addition of Schmiedmann carbon streamers and there’s also a Motorsport II rear diffuser with cutouts for the beefy quad exhaust tips. You’ll also find a BMW M performance carbon boot spoiler and Schmiedmann has retrofitted the High-gloss Shadowline window trim along with adding black gloss double slat kidney grilles for the finishing touch. The wheels, meanwhile, are 20” Z Performance ZP.06s finished in Phantom Black, with polished spokes set against black painted barrels and lips for a striking effect, and while the 20s are needed to clear the massive front brakes, they’re also the perfect size for the big-bodied Five and really help to fill those cavernous arches.

You might think that, on a modern car such as this, there wouldn’t be much you could or would even want to do to the interior but Schmiedmann has made sure that interior on its S5 stands out from the crowd in just the right way. The most obvious mod is the steering wheel, a suitably exciting-looking Schmiedmann item with heavily-sculpted grips around the rim, beautifully hand-finished in Nappa leather and alcantara. The instrument cluster has been modified and now sports red needles and an S5 logo; there’s a black and grey sport pedal set and even the floor mats have been replaced with plush new ones that are extra thick and boast genuine nubuck leather piping with double red stitching.

Not only is the Schmiedmann S5 a magnificent mobile display of what the company can offer, it is also a serious piece of machinery, one which boasts M5-rivaling power, performance and presence, with looks that dominate the road. Schmiedmann has left no stone unturned in the creation of its S5 and the extremely impressive results speak for themselves.

“The end result is an amazing 532hp accompanied by a mammoth 563lb ft of torque, huge gains over stock”


DATA FILE / #Schmiedmann / #BMW-F10 / #BMW / #Schmiedmann-S5 / #Schmiedmann-S5-F10 / #BMW-Schmiedmann / #BMW-550i-Schmiedmann-F10 / #Z-Performance / #BMW-550i-Schmiedmann-S5-F10 / #BMW-5-Seies / #BMW-5-Series-F10

ENGINE 4.4-litre twin-turbo #V8 #N63B44 / #BMW-N63 / #BMW-N63-Schmiedmann / #BMW-N63 , Schmiedmann by Supersprint downpipes, Schmiedmann by #Turbo.dk #Stage-2-Signature turbos, 75% larger chargecooler radiator, Schmiedmann by Supersprint exhaust system in micro sandblasted stainless steel with #Schmiedmann-designed black double layer quad tailpipes. Eight-speed Sport automatic gearbox / #ZF / #ZF8HP

POWER AND TORQUE 532hp, 563lb ft

CHASSIS 8.5x20” (front) and 10x20” (rear) #Z-Performance-ZP.06 wheels in Phantom Black with 245/35 (front) and 275/30 (rear) Bridgestone Potenza tyres, #Bilstein B16 coilovers, #Schmiedmann-BBK with six-piston Phoenix yellow calipers and #Zimmerman 400x36mm floating discs (front), stock calipers painted Phoenix yellow and Zimmerman sport brake discs (rear)

EXTERIOR M5 front bumper, M5 front arches with Schmiedmann S5 vents, Motorsport II side skirts with Schmiedmann carbon sideskirt streamers, Motorsport II rear diffuser, #BMW-M-Performance carbon bootlid spoiler, High-gloss Shadowline trim retrofit, gloss black doubleslat kidney grilles, Schmiedmann emblems
INTERIOR Schmiedmann sport steering wheel hand-finished in Nappa leather and alcantara, Schmiedmann black and grey sport pedal set, Schmiedmann modifi ed gauge cluster with red needles and Schmiedmann S5 logo, extrathick, nubuck-trimmed Schmiedmann S5 floor mats with double red stitching, M Tech door sills

CONTACT www.schmiedmann.co.uk

STUPID, DUMB IDEA! / #BMW / #BMW-G31

I must say, as someone who has owned every version of the 5 Series from the E12 to, most recently, the #BMW-F10 / #BMW-F11 , I’m also not overly keen on the new G30 interior. There’s nothing really wrong with the fit and finish, apart from a couple of areas, but how I wish manufacturers would ditch piano black trim; I just don’t understand why anyone chooses this option! However, I absolutely detest this stupid, dumb idea BMW now has of perching the cheap-looking iDrive screen on top of the dash. Not only does it suffer from reflection from the sunroof (yes, they do still exist), but I think it just looks naff and cheap.

I much prefer the layout in the F11, where the screen was neatly tucked into the instrument binnacle, away from sunlight. I think BMW should do what Audi does, and make the screen hidden within the dash until it’s needed. That way you create nice, clean lines with no distractions, and it would keep everyone happy.

As for the G30’s overall design, I’d have much preferred something that looks completely different; a new vehicle with a more forward-thinking style. I seem to remember a concept for the new 5, presenting a much leaner, sportier look – a cross between the 6 and an 8 coupé – that presented a low and powerful image. Now, that would be a car I’d lust over!

However, I’m sure that when the lease finishes on the Range Rover I currently drive, I’ll undoubtedly return to BMW, with a new #BMW-5-Series-G30 . By that time, the #BMW-G30 will be out in face-lifted, LCI form which, personally, I always like, as #BMW typically make big strides with these updates.

Lee Ryan much prefers the in-dash screen position used in the F10 #BMW-5-Series … … to the ‘stuck-on iPad’ look favoured in the G30.