Forget about this thing as a mom’s taxi. If she thumbs that M-button by mistake on a slippery wet day, she’s gonna lose it for sure. But if you’re up to the challenge of the daily commute in a station wagon with an alter ego ready to destroy basically anything that crosses your path, look no further.

Out on Kyalami it challenges you like nothing else. Had to abort our last of three laps looking for the Hot one because when I really pushed it, it got all angry in places you can least afford it to — like through the Sweep, Sunset and the Mineshaft. Just a touch more pedal than the previous lap saw the rear end lighting up, overheating the rubber and doing its best to set off where I wasn’t going…

Which makes for spectacular sideways driving displays that are quite simply not the quickest way of driving around corners. And considering Kyalami is at 1400-odd meters above sea level and that M5 is thus about 100 horses down, just imagine how much more challenging it’d be to drive the beast at the coast…

Happily then, BMW supplies it with all those driver protection devices to prevent mum from getting all crossed up on De Waal Drive, but for purposes of testing, we run all cars bareback — just to let you know that if you are not a highly advanced driver, rather leave driving with that V10 live to the pros…

The heart of the beast is that stupendous 373kW 520Nm 5.0-litre V10 — a masterpiece of modern design that we still reckon is the finest normally aspirated engine out there. For the noise if nothing else — you’ll soon understand when one approaches you from the front…

Getting back to the track session, I managed to put the lap previous to the bucking bronco episode mentioned above together quite well, even if I say so myself and that 2 minutes 06.9 circuit of Kyalami represents our fourth-fastest ever Hot Lap there. Would you ever believe that a big, black two-tonne station wagon would be next in line behind GT3 RS, R8 and new M3? Neither did we. Until we did it, that is…

Many consider the M5’s seven-speed SMG gearbox to be its failing. But I cannot agree. Yes, around town there are times when I wish I knew the choicest Bavarian curses to put on those who designed it — especially in this Touring version, which would necessarily probably be a little more urban confined due to it’s newfound load-lugging and versatile nature. Yes, manoeuvring about parking places marred with inclines makes you look like an idiot and trying to pull away gently up a hill is a recipe for disaster for anyone too close behind.

But out there on the open road or even better, on track, SMG II is as ruthless, rewarding and difficult to beat as even imagining a station wagon propelled by a 500-horse V10. Quirky indeed.

One aspect of the M5 Touring that struck me almost right away when I climbed in it for the first time was how it suddenly seems to have aged. I ran my M5 sedan basically daily for two years until six months back, so I was immediately intimately at home in there. But it felt rather strangely last season.

Suppose that’s because we’re now used to our far more recent X5’s seemingly better finished and more refined cabin — the X5 still uses many of those, let’s say odd BMW cockpit styling cues, but they now seem so much more sophisticated compared to what the basic 5-series offers.

That, I’m afraid, is starting to look quite crude in comparison. Next five however, is just a year or so away, although we’ll likely have to wait two or three more years for the next M5 Touring, so that would be another little compromise…

In summary, the BMW M5 Touring is certainly my kind of a car — it has everything a family man who wants it all can offer. From a comfortable cabin that not only cossets the entire family, to a huge estate cavern at the back, to a sublime level of specification and kit; it has it all.

And then some — a 500 horsepower V10 and F1-like seven-speed robot-gearbox and a chassis ready to take on anything, anywhere.

Oh yes, you’ll also need XXXL balls to drive it as it deserves to be and it is flawed and compromised in so many respects. But then a V10 in a station wagon is quite a compromise to start with, isn’t it…?

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