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Man Maths: E34 BMW 5 Series

1 week ago

Writer:

Dan Prosser | Ti co-founder

Date:

3 May 2025

Go to any classic European summer holiday destination and you’ll be struck by the number of older cars still on the road. I’m just back from a week in Portugal and they’re everywhere. And I don’t mean cherished classics, but very normal cars, 30 or 40 years old, kept in regular use.

Meanwhile, it’s become very unusual to see a pre-2000 car in daily use in the UK. Next time you’re driving on our roads, see how long it takes to spot a 1980s or 1990s car, something that isn’t someone’s pride and joy, just their everyday wheels. The previous registration plate format, in place until 2001, has become an endangered species. Maybe all the old tat got scrapped after 2008, or maybe we as a nation are just too preoccupied with having something new, or nearly new, on the drive.

Still, it makes those overseas family holidays that little bit more enjoyable for car nerds like us. The one that stood out to me was a tatty, sun-bleached E34 BMW 5 Series. Nothing special – I didn’t get a close look but I’m assuming it was just a 520i – but I hadn’t seen one in years. I almost complimented the driver, until it occurred he probably wasn’t driving it because he loved it, but because he’d bought it cheap years ago and kept it going ever since. He’d think I was mad.

This generation of BMW 5 Series has become an endangered species in Britain

How rare have these cars become in the UK? There are currently 3432 examples of the BMW 5 Series listed on AutoTrader, only nine of which are E34s. In price they range from just £3000 for a surprisingly tidy looking 525i to a somewhat ambitious £29,989 for an admittedly very desirable 540i Touring with AC Schnitzer upgrades. I particularly liked the white 535i Sport up for £7795.

Tellingly, all but a couple of the adverts for those nine E34s describe the car as a classic, or collectible, or an investment. Even the least remarkable versions of the third-generation 5 Series have slipped out of normal family use in this country…

There are few more perfect BMW designs than the E34

It was available with grippy iX all-wheel drive

The E34 was also offered in Touring guise...

...And we need not say any more about the wonderful E34 M5

M5s aside, I’ve only driven one E34, an automatic 535i. It was lovely. This wasn’t a Sport and it was in no way sporting, but it had the kind of long-wheel-travel, chubby-sidewalled ride comfort you don’t find even in today’s ultra luxury cars. It was the sort of machine you dropped into at the start of a journey, then gradually sunk further and further in as the miles rolled by.

And if it really must be an M5? There are so few offered for sale that getting any sort of read on values is difficult. I see that a limited edition ‘Nürburgring Handling Pack’ car sold at auction for £17,150 three years ago, and a left-hand drive M5 Touring for just over £6000 several years before that. Six months ago, a low-mileage 1989 car fetched just under £20,000. Given that the E34 M5 is one of the best of the lot (I won’t spoil it for you here, but when we gathered all the M5s together last summer to name one the greatest M5 ever, the E34 did very well indeed) and that values are surely only headed in one direction, I reckon they’re a very strong bet just now.

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