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G61 BMW 5 Series Touring Looks Just as We Imagined an i5 M60 xDrive Grocery Getter Would

Whether or not you like the abundance of quirky designs from BMW – like the X2, M2, 4 Series plus M3 and M4, X7 LCI, the 7 Series and i7, or the mind-bending XM Label Red, one thing is for sure. These models do stand out in any crowd – both the right and the wrong ones.
G61 BMW 5 Series Touring rendering by Theottle 16 photos
Photo: theottle / YouTube
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Beauty, as always, is solely in the eye of the beholder. But after years of turning a tone-deaf ear and a blind eye to complaints from the fan base, it seems that BMW is finally preparing some cleaner designs for its future models as the rumor mill claims the German brand’s design boss, Adrian van Hooydonk, will take into account the feedback and will not “ignore the chatter” anymore. That’s a small victory for diehard fans who lament the convoluted and disjointed designs, plus the eyesore of kidney grilles. But it is a potential step in the right direction for many others.

Well, that’s also too little and too late for the latest meteoric apparition from Bavaria – aka the eighth generation G60 BMW 5 Series, and especially its fully electric i5 sedan variants. Two of them have been revealed so far, i5 eDrive40 with 335 horsepower and one electric motor driving the rear wheels, plus the mighty i5 M60 xDrive with dual electric motors, AWD, and up to 590 horsepower. That’s enough to hit 100 kph (62 mph) in 3.8 seconds and drive up to 320 miles (515 km) on a WLTP-style charge, or 256 miles (412 km) according to the EPA, as well as inflame the imagination of many people.

Both in the real world as well as across the imaginative realm of digital car content creators – which is full of people who can also do something about their visions. Some decided to take matters into their hands – or rather, at the tip of their CGI brush, as is the case here with virtual artist known as Theottle on social media, who has resorted to CGI slicing and dicing the latest executive sedan and a smaller 3 Series Touring to come up with the dream of a fully electric (G61) i5 Touring.

Naturally, the author didn’t start the CGI mashup in his latest behind-the-scenes making-of video (embedded below) with the i5 eDrive40 but rather peeled some ‘skin’ off the 3 Series Touring and slapped it on top of the i5 M60 to hit the flagship sweet spot from the first attempt. Interestingly, the resulting station wagon is much easier to digest than the sedan version on two accounts – the kidney grille reverted to slotted tradition and the five-door allure works much better with the new 5 Series styling. So, do we give it our CGI hall pass, or not?

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About the author: Aurel Niculescu
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Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution.
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