BMW M5 Refresh Caught Testing At The Nurburgring: What's Likely Behind The Camo

The current BMW M5 and its station wagon counterpart is a bit of a monster in BMW's lineup. It has 717 horsepower, weighs 5,390 pounds, and has a top speed of 190 miles an hour. Now, spy shots have revealed what very well could be a refreshed version of the super sedan. 

The design of the M5 we all know and love has been around since 2024, so the photos — taken at the Nürburgring no less — could potentially be an aesthetic update. The big Beemer is under camouflage, which is doing its job and hiding some of the specifics, but the front fascia looks a little less angry and carries at least some Neue Klasse influence that we've seen in the new iX4 and i3. 

The photos are, at the very least, an aesthetic upgrade for the M5 to make the flagship sedan a little more current. The spy photos might also be giving us a peek at what might be the BMW M5 Competition, a model that is conspicuously absent from the 5-Series lineup. 

The M3, M4, and even the X5 and X6 SUVs have Competition versions that are better suited for track performance. An M5 Competition doesn't need a lot of help in the power department (although more power would certainly be welcome), but would likely feature aerodynamic upgrades, suspension tweaks, and overall lightening techniques to help get the M5's heft under control. The M5 already has a 0-60 time of 3.4 seconds, but anything under that is a possibility, especially if the electric motors are beefed up.

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Even if it's just a facelift or, as BMW calls it, a "life cycle impulse," we might be seeing an updated M5 soon. The Nurburgring is, after all, the most perfect place in the world to test out huge German performance machines. 

The spy photos might be showing a test vehicle for something else altogether. There's always that possibility. But could we be getting an early look at the 2028 BMW M5 or M5 Competition?