According to BMW, the average 5 Series customer is 52 years old, has no children living at home and is most likely to be male, possibly with his own business. With prices that start at 25,455 pounds (for the entry-level 520i) the new 5 Series may just be tantalisingly out of reach for those who have to prioritise Pampers or Cow & Gate over The National Trust and Aquascutum.

But hold on a minute. What about all those 540i and M5s you see driven by squeaky-faced young thrusters with a habit of hitting their bonuses as often as they hit All Bar One? Statistics reveal that those two models represent less than 5% of 5 Series saloon sales in the UK. The real business is done at the less glamorous end of the model range, where the 520i accounts for 21% of the annual sale, and a whopping 39% of all 5 Series saloons sold last year were, in fact, diesel variants (525d and 530d).

The new 5 Series launches on September 18th and, logically, the 520i and 530 diesel are two of the first models to be released. But then, that is very BMW isn't it? Logical; safe; reliable; unthreatening. Or it was. The new 5 Series might suggest otherwise, having become the first mainstream BMW model to be "Bangled", as it is rapidly becoming known. After the introduction of a bold new look for the radical 7 Series and then doing it again with the Z4 roadster, Design Director Chris Bangle has now placed both his, and BMW's, family jewels firmly on the block with the new 5 Series. This is a hugely important car for BMW, with 1.4 million examples of the previous model having been sold since 1995, over 100,000 of them in the UK.

Edgier but Still Unmistakable BMW 5 Series

However, where the 7 Series styling caused consternation and that of the Z4 led to contradiction, 5 Series has generally been less ferociously received. In the metal it is a striking and well-proportioned car, which actually moves the 5 Series silhouette forward, as it must. But for many people, consumer and expert alike, the outgoing 5 was the epitome of perfection in a sporting saloon car. The new model is undoubtedly a little edgier in some of its detailing but it is still, unmistakably, a BMW 5 Series.

Looks are important but the 5 Series' ability will be more so to help BMW reach its target for the new car. The BMW reputation is founded on producing handsome sports saloons and if the looks have moved on, there will be an expectation that the driving experience has advanced too. It has.

Not only is the familiar BMW blend of sports handling and refined comfort fully evident, but the bar has been raised still further. The all-aluminium chassis is now mated to a part aluminium body. The optional electrically-assisted Active Steering reduces steering input at low speeds and lends the car a beautifully-weighted feel. Another option, Dynamic Drive, uses active anti-roll bars to absorb up to 80% of all cornering forces, improving passenger comfort and handling attitude enormously. And inside, you will even be able to order a new 5 with a jet fighter-style "Head-Up" Display, projecting certain driver information onto the windscreen in front of you.

BMW Friends will Feel at Home

But these are all options, some of which (Head-Up Display) won't be with us until next year. What are the standard cars actually like? Across the range, anyone familiar to BMW will feel very at home. Unfettered by clever electronic aids, there is a driving purity to even the most basic of BMWs and this remains firmly intact on the new 520i. It is by no means my favourite model, but gearbox aside (it has a long-throw and a rubbery vagueness that just seems at odds with the rest of the car), it is a nicely balanced, comfortable and well-appointed sporting saloon. It comes with automatic air-conditioning, iDrive (of which, more later), electrically adjustable seats, six airbags and programmable cruise control.

Of the three models launched now, the pick of the bunch is the 530 diesel, particularly in six-speed Steptronic guise. The engine itself is not new, but in its latest form produces an impressive 218bhp and, more importantly, 369lbs ft of torque. Aside from its uncannily smooth power delivery (a result of all that available torque), it is imperceptibly an oil burner, being both quiet and fast (0-62mph in just 7.1 seconds and a top speed of 152mph). It is only at the pump that its diesel credentials become apparent and in your wallet where the ultimate benefits will be felt. With almost 41 miles to the gallon (Combined Cycle), better still residuals than petrol-engined BMWs (generally around 3-5% up) and significant tax savings to be had for that sole surviving dinosaur, the company car driver, BMW has made diesel both sexy and irresistible.

Updated and Improved iDrive

Inside all new 5 models you will find a second-generation version of iDrive, BMW's divergent system for controlling audio, climate, navigation and communications. Originally launched on the current 7 Series, this pioneering rotary controller left sections of the motoring press with furrowed brows and BMW with substantial column inches of criticism. The original system has been updated and improved, as you would expect with evolving new technologies, although the first version found in the 7 Series can actually be mastered if you bother to take the time to learn how to use it. Undoubtedly this is the future and, let's be honest, John Logie Baird didn't exactly turn up a digital flat-screen solution at the first time of asking, did he?

Overall, BMW claims the new 5 Series to be more spacious and more comfortable, safer, better equipped, more technologically advanced, faster, lighter, more fuel-efficient and even more fun to drive than before. And it's not as if the car it replaces was half-bad either. Chris Willows, BMW GB's Director of Corporate Communications, is unworried by the new design direction and claims dealers are no more or less nervous about the new 5 than they are about any new model launch. On the evidence presented to date, there is little reason why they should be.

My only criticism of any note, aside from pointing out that the 16-inch wheels look too small in their arches and the gearbox in the 520 seems to be made of nylon, would be that the car doesn't feel so special. The build quality itself is still there, it's just that the standard of the materials appears to have taken a bit of a tumble. The plastics look and feel cheaper; the lighter weight doors don't close with such a reassuring thunk.

Which is an observation of how it seems rather than how it is, perhaps, but it is still a shame because beneath the new look and behind the clever technology, this car is the same old, same old and none the worse for that. Brilliantly engineered and outstanding to drive, the best just got better. Iım looking forward to the kids leaving home and celebrating my 50th birthday.

  Porsche moves out of fast lane with Cayenne V6

Germany's Porsche, famed for its growling sports cars, said it was set to launch a low-powered version of its Cayenne sports utility vehicle -- one of the slowest models it has produced in decades.

The world's most profitable car maker said the new model, equipped with a V6 engine from Volkswagen, would take 9.1 seconds to hit 100 kilometres an hour, almost as long as it takes its fastest sportscar to reach double that speed.

"The first Porsche with a V6 engine will be available in European markets from the end of November, and in the United States in the first half of 2004," the firm said in a statement. The basic model would cost 40,900 euros before tax.

Launched last year, the more powerful V8 versions of the Cayenne were a radical departure for Porsche, which built its reputation on race-winning sports cars, not the two-tonne offroaders that now dominate American highways. Praised by some as the ultimate symbol of indulgence and loathed by others as an ugly irrelevance, the Cayenne has kept Porsche sales on track as demand for its traditional 911 and Boxster sportscars slows.

Sales of the 911 and Boxster slipped nine percent in the nine months to the end of April, the first three quarters of Porsche's business year, although demand for the Cayenne meant the company sold 13 percent more cars overall. Some industry watchers say the arrival of a slower Cayenne, which has a top speed of 214 km per hour, suggest sales and pricing of the more powerful versions have nonetheless fallen short of expectations, and worry the car will damage Porsche's reputation as a maker of brawny racers.

"The launch of the V6 could stretch Porsche's brand credibility to the limit in our view," Goldman Sachs said in a research note earlier this year, when rumours of a Cayenne V6 model were first circulating.

"It would be the slowest Porsche since the 924 of the 1970s, Price competition with VW and BMW will be intense and margins minimal," Goldman Sachs added.

The 924, considered by Porsche purists to be one of the brand's least collectible models, used a four-cylinder engine designed by VW's Audi division, which also assembled the car. The two firms more recently collaborated on the development of the Cayenne and Volkswagen's Tourag off-roader. VW already offers the latter with a six-cylinder engine, while BMW offers its X5 sports utility with six-cylinder petrol and diesel engines.

But other investors are more optimistic about the new model. Analysts at Lehman Brothers said recently they expected Porsche to sell 5,000 Cayenne V6s in 2003/2004, or around 15 percent of total Cayenne sales, rising to over a quarter of sales the following year.

"A limited supply of V6s should enable Porsche to run its Leipzig plant at its full capacity of 40,000 units and improve overall profit contribution," Merrill Lynch said in a recent note.

Written by Nick Tattersall