ISUK

Well I finally saw the car for the first time in the metal last night - wow! Over time the shape has become more and more appealing to me in photographs but you really have to see the car in person as the photos really don't do it justice.

The car on display was a sapphire black 530i SE with beige leather, style 124 18" alloys, business sat-nav, active steering, adaptive headlights, steptronic, bluetooth, and glovebox mounted CD changer.

Externally it was the same as my car will be and I am very pleased that I decided to go for the sapphire as it really looks superb on the car. The car is very imposing and I would recommend that people fit at least the 17" alloys or better still one of the 18" options as the 16" wheels will make the car look top heavy. The external styling gives the car real prescence and those headlights strike just the right balance in terms of a link to the past whilst moving the design language forward. There was a new 3 series coupe parked next to it in the showroom and the new 5 makes that car look very dated. In fact when I looked at a new E39 5 that was also at the dealership you would almost believe that BMW have skipped a model generation with the E60 as it looks so fresh compared to the previous model. The much criticised rear end styling looks superb IMHO. The boot (trunk) looks nothing like the 7 series and flows well with the design. The high tail stance gives the car an agreessive look from the rear that most photos I've seen fail to capture as the waistline drops down towards the front of the car.

The beige interior was much nicer than I expected and contrary to magazine reviews that I have read I would say that the quality of the interior plastics look better than before and are certainly an inmprovement over say the 3 series. The much reported electric window switch panel on the door fitted perfectly and looked to be of high quality. The layout of the dash was very logical and the twin binnacle design looks great. The i-drive system seems fairly intuitive to use. The interior space is remarkable and feels like it must be on a par with the previous generation 7 series.

All in all I'd say BMW have done a great job and moved the styling goalposts on significantly. I think that this new design language is going to take time to be universally accepted but once it is, every motoring journalist is going to use it as their benchmark again. Don't rush to bash Bangle. He said that we would have to wait until all of the new designs had been launched before we made our final judgement on the new design language he has introduced. I believe that he is spot on. The 7 was radically different, the Z4 controversial. The new 5 starts to bridge the visual styling gap between these two models and this will continue, I'm sure, with the new X3 and 3 series giving a new BMW family look.

segovia

Hi, I agree with almost everything you say. I say almost because after being inside all the 5s I've seen (around ten) I have the impression that some plastics simply shouldn't be there, specially the one under the CD slot, and fit and finish wasn't (one in particular) always perfect, as it should be in a car of this price. Apart from that I agree, it's big step forward compared with the E39, and eventually most of the people will like its looks, as I do now.
Bye