ESTATES WITH HASTE

9th January 2025

…but also taste? Ben Barry shoots the breeze on two epic shooting brakes.

Accepted wisdom says estate cars are for ferrying kids, shopping and dogs around sensibly. Mostly this is true.

But if you’ve got a wicked sense of humour, a penchant for supercar performance in a boxy body and perhaps need to withdraw a very large amount of money from a bank with some haste, we’d recommend two new German high-performance cars that happen to be estates – the new BMW M5 Touring and Audi RS6 Avant GT.

Both offer large V8 turbocharged engines, all-wheel drive, plus loadbays larger than some aircraft hangars.

The BMW hasn’t had the easiest introduction, being widely fat-shamed online, and to be fair it does weigh more than some big SUVs at 2,435kg. It’s the plug-in hybrid technology that plays a major part in that.

Allowing BMW to combine a monstrous 4.4-litre V8 with a lithium-ion battery good for 42 miles of electric running, masses of extra performance are piled on, ‘to boot’: 717bhp isn’t just 100bhp more than the last M5, it’s more than a McLaren Artura supercar.

There’s zero turbo lag and way more punch in the mid-range than before, so overtakes are like clicking into the far distance on Google Streetview. Faces blur. Cars disappear. Horizons smash into view.

More surprising is just how dextrously the M5 Touring handles. There’s a pliant, planted feel in a straight line, but this is also a genuinely responsive car considering its size, the fast-paced steering and rear-wheel steer injecting energy to direction changes. Like a squatting sumo wrestler, it also helps that so much of that weight is so low down.

If anything the M5 Touring feels too wide rather than too heavy, but as a luxurious limo that makes insane cross-country progress, entertains its driver and doubles as a removals van, there’s much to admire. All partypieces that BMW’s teutonic rival, Audi hopes to poop with its RS 6 Avant GT.

This year’s second shooting brake on steroids boasts Audi’s turbocharged 4.0-litre V8, ‘quattro’ all-wheel drive, packaged up in muscular if comparatively understated bodywork. There are no plug-in hybrid bits and less performance than the M5 at 621bhp, but the RS6 is also a good bit lighter, at 2,075kg.

So far, so RS6. But to this familiar recipe the GT adds special-edition sauce in the form of 22-inch alloys, adjustable suspension, plus bucket seats. Should that sound and look more ‘racecar’ than ‘estate’, then that’s no coincidence – the lairy red-grey-black go-faster stripes are a nod to Audi’s domination of the American Trans-Am championship in the late 1980s, with its ‘90’ quattro IMSA GTO (pictured here alongside its descendant).

Thankfully you can spec’ under-the-radar colours and no stickers, in which case the RS6 could almost pass for another sensible estate car. But definitely not sensible is the £176,975 price tag – about £60k more than the new M5 Touring, which should come in around £114,000 once pricing is confirmed. Still serious cash, but for my money, 717bhp sure does represent a lot more ‘broom!’ for your buck.

If you’ve got a wicked sense of humour, a penchant for supercar performance in a boxy body and perhaps need to withdraw a very large amount of money from a bank with some haste, we’d recommend two new German high-performance cars that happen to be estates – the new BMW M5 Touring and Audi RS6 Avant GT

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