Yahoo Autos The New BMW 5-Series Is Exactly What You Expect It To Be
BMW always debuts its latest technologies in the 7-Series, after which comes a new 5-Series, packed with as many of those gizmos (and luxury) as possible for the money. And from these leaked photos, it seems the G30 chassis 5er is a conservative update to BMW's bread-and-butter sedan. While we don't have much (or any) of the specs, we do now know what it'll look like.
In terms of the design, there are no surprises whatsoever. Regarding the bigger brother last year, BMW Group Design chief Adrian van Hooydonk said that he is "a particular fan of the Air Breather – a chrome-framed aperture positioned at the rear of the front wheel", mostly because it's "not merely decorative but performs a function."
Well, those Air Breathers will also perform their function on the new 5-Series, and you also get an emphasized shoulder line on the side lifted straight off the current 5er. Talk about shocking! What's more, the G30's front is slightly more aggressive than the 7's, mostly because...well, you're supposed to be at least a decade younger than the guy next door with the 7 Series, so you deserve a bit of added visual dynamism as well. At the rear, the new 5 Series has slimmer taillights and trapezoidal exhaust tips–as long as you go for the bigger engines.
Clearly, the 5-Series will have plenty of dynamism to throw against the Mercedes-Benz E Class and Audi's A6 line. And when it comes to Tobias Moers' AMGs and the RS cars developed under former Lamborghini boss Stephan Winkelmann's new beard, BMW's answer will be ready by 2018. The upcoming M5 packs the familiar reverse-flow twin turbo V8 tuned to well over 600 horsepower, paired with an even quicker automatic gearbox and a rear-biased all-wheel drive system as standard. It will also sound something like this:
Going back to the standard 5 Series, the similarities continue inside. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as with what's pretty much the dashboard of the 7 comes a quite extensive list of new features as well. Stay tuned, we'll have them all today.
All in all, this conservative update is very far from the radical design language BMW is suggesting with its "Next 100 Years" concepts, which is unsurprising given the target audience and the competition. Also, since they believe rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing are "expected to be commonplace 30 years from now", we can have a fairly accurate guess at when the next visually exciting 5 Series can surface.
That's all the info we have right now, but we should have more images and specs sooner than later.
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