Background
The BMW E60 and E61 5-series – the former is the saloon, the latter is the touring/estate – first hit the showrooms in 2003. That BMW would follow the usual mid-size luxury car formula was predictable; offer fuel-sipping turbodiesels for the tax-conscious executive on the rise, plus a few semi-performance petrol cars for folk for whom pleasure is more important than shaving a few quid off their tax bill.
It’s a well-trodden path and the front-engine, rear-drive chassis offers a reassuring alternative to the more usual front-wheel drive layout. Throw in a mixture of automatic and manual gearboxes, plus a four-wheel-drive option to allow native buyers to get to their Bavarian cabins in the winter, and you’re bound to have a winner.
So far, so predictable.
And then came along the M5. With a stonking – and frankly ridiculous – V10 engine that displaced 4,999cc and could summon 500bhp and 384lb/ft of torque, the M5 can streak to 62mph in just 4.1 seconds.
Unlimited, it is said capable of breaking the 200mph barrier. Which means the 200mph speedo is, if anything, understated.
Utterly bonkers, not only was the M5 the world’s first production V10-powered saloon but the engine is only shared with the E63/E64 M6, which made no economic sense, either.
The engine’s power can be dialled up in three guises: P400, which is the start-up mode and limits the power to 394bhp; P500, which unleashed the full Monty; and, P500S which gives full power plus a more sensitive throttle response.
Of course, the chassis was significantly upgraded to cope with all that extra power and the M5 gained a wider track, different steering, and beefed-up, adjustable suspension in addition to extra cooling via the flared front spoiler. The sub-frame mounts are reinforced to cope with the extra torque too, and all the bushes, linkages and joints are similarly up-spec’d.
A semi-automatic gearbox was used because the need for stronger gears – it’s that torque, again – meant a conventional manual gearbox shift pattern would have been impossible to achieve.
The result is sensational, with Autocar writing: ‘The V10 just chews through gears and the 8200rpm limiter seems very pessimistic.’
Just over 20,000 examples were built in all by the time the M5 died in 2016. The first – and last – of the normally aspirated super-saloons, we will never see its like again.
