Range-toppers aren't always the best choice The M5 has long been the pinnacle of the BMW 5 Series range, and it has always been very good, but it has lost all of its subtle Q-car status in recent generations, it has become far more difficult to deploy on public roads and the current one costs £111k. All of which serves to enhance the appeal of what you might call the ‘lesser’ variants. Case in point: I spotted what I thought was a very tidy E61-generation BMW 520d in a car park recently, with large, shiny alloys. But closer examination revealed that it was a rather more interesting beast: a 550i. I’ve always had a jones for them: they seem to have nearly everything the M5 has but none of the downsides. In this generation, the M5 was a crazed, wild animal of a car, marrying a snarling but famously fragile 5.0-litre V10 with a clunky robotised manual paddle ’box. I was at a BMW press event back in 2005 where, as you would expect, the then new M5 was much in demand from the assembled hacks, and it revealed another Achilles heel: an insatiable thirst for super-unleaded. Inevitably the car was driven repeatedly in a spirited fashion on a high-speed test loop, and a support crew had to take the car off and top up its tank (the same size as in the regular 520d) every 180 miles. The 550i, with its lazy V8, would have far more range, be more liveable, be more comfortable and attract far less unwelcome attention from vandals, thieves and indeed Dibble himself. Its 361bhp is more than adequate, and so too the simple slushbox or manual delivering it. And it’s far from my only ‘second-best’ choice. Give me a VW Golf GTI over a Golf R any day: the GTI will do everything you want just fine while costing less to fuel, service, insure and repair. And forget the old Peugeot 205 GTi 1.6 or 1.9 debate: the car you really want is the warmed-through 205 XS. With its rev-happy 1.4 and close-ratio ’box, it’s a car to be rowed actively, conserving momentum, delivering thrills aplenty on a B-road. In the same era, the Mk3 Ford Fiesta XR2i was a far better car all round than its RS Turbo big brother, which had horrendous torque steer. More recently, I preferred the svelte Mk1 Audi R8 V8 over the heavier, more brutal V10 that came later, and of course the current (and wonderful) BMW M340 now rightly has a cult status rivalling the fabled chipped 335d of 10 years ago, M3 be damned. Yes, for me, the top-of-the range model is usually too expensive, heavier, more complex, overloaded and too fast in comparison to variants lower down the food chain. Sometimes it’s plain unnecessary. Travel lighter and consider the slightly less scalding variety. There’s a rarity factor to consider too. Somewhat perversely, the pricey top model often sells and/or survives far better than the one immediately below that. There are around 6300 M5s of all vintages on our roads today against just 511 550is – and only 22 of those are E61 Tourings, making one a much more special sighting. All hail the underdog.