Driven: 2000 BMW M5 Is a Four-Door German Corvette

More proof that more is better. Much better. BMWFrom the February 1999 issue of Car and Driver. This is not generally known, but it was Johnny Rocco who first articulated the philosophy behind BMW's new M5 sedan. You remember Rocco. He was the heavy in Key Largo, a '30s gang lord attempting a comeback after World War II. The good guy, played by Humphrey Bogart, wanted Rocco to say what it was he wanted, and after some verbal fencing, Rocco, played by a sneering Edward G. Robinson, summed it all up with one word. "More," he said. "Yeah, that's it—more." We figure Rocco as a Buick Roadmaster kind of guy, but even so he nailed it, because more is what you get with the new M5. More cylinders—two. More power—at 394 horsepower, it's in very rare company for a sedan. More grip. More electronic refinements. And, natch, you'll need more money to get one. Just how much more money is anybody's guess right now, since the latest M5 probably won't appear in a U.S. showrooms before October. Our guess: about $75,000. But we don't have to guess what the lucky few (some 1000 U.S. buyers per annum, according to BMW) will get for their money. Just a day and a half of brisk touring in southern Bavaria was enough to convince us that for a certain class of discerning well-heeled driver—you, perhaps?—the new M5 is the most seductively sophisticated sports sedan to speed down the pike since...well, since the last M5 to come our way, back at the turn of this decade. We called that scorcher "the quickest and fastest regular production four-door automobile this magazine has ever tested" (C/D, July 1990). This one figures to be all of that. And more. See all results for used 2000 BMW M5 for sale near 36422 This is the fourth entry in the M5 series. Like its predecessors—M5 eins, 1984-87; M5 zwei, 1988-92; MS drei, 1992-95 (Europe only)—its development took place in BMW's M shops, M standing for "motorsport." Unlike its predecessors, this M5 is propelled by an engine that lacks a racing heritage. Previous M5s relied for thrust on BMW's much-campaigned straight-six. That engine started out in 1978 in the mother of all Ms—the M1 coupe—with a horsepower rating of 266. Its output soared as high as 335 horsepower in Europe—formidable output from a naturally aspirated 3.8-liter engine. Although the new engine, a V-8, doesn't quite measure up to the last of the sixes in horsepower per liter, it's formidable in the power-to-weight department at 9.6 pounds per, and the absence of a racing heritage doesn't seem to inhibit its urgency even slightly. So, how urgent is urgent? BMW forecasts a 0-to-62-mph time of 5.3 seconds. Road conditions during our Bavarian blitz ranged from vaguely damp to way wet, and we weren't able to verify that claim with a stopwatch, but even so, that 0-to-62 number feels conservative. The last M5 we tested, back in 1992, with 310 horses on tap from its 3.5-liter six, stormed to 60 mph in 5.6 seconds. That one scaled in at 12.3 pounds to each horsepower. The new one—BMW says it's precisely 16 pounds lighter than its 1992 ancestor, although roughly 40 pounds heavier than a 540i six-speed—has a power-to-weight ratio of 9.6 pounds per horsepower. You figure it out. Our guess: less than five seconds. Corvette territory. See all results for used 2000 BMW M5 for sale near 36422 That's only part of it, of course. The other part is what happens between 60 mph and the top of the clock, which is electronically governed to 155 mph, a speed limitation adopted by the various automakers to appease the German Green Party's clamor for speed limits on the autobahns. There are a good many cars capable of this speed, and as you'd expect, the M5 doesn't take long to nudge up against the limiter, which asserts itself almost unobtrusively. But up to the point where the engine-management system begins dragging its electronic anchor, the thrust of the V-8 seems almost limitless. As with a number of Japanese superbikes, there's an electric-motor feel to the acceleration—no peaks, no valleys, just a sense of endless upsurge. Keep upshifting long enough, and you'll hit escape velocity. Escape from what? Well, just about anything else with four wheels and four doors. BMW engineers call the M5's V-8 a new engine, and they have a case. The architecture is based on the 4.4-liter DOHC 32-valve aluminum V-8 that helps make the 540i one of C/D's 10Best for '99 (see January issue), but the block is a specific casting with markedly different bore and stroke dimensions—94 by 89 millimeters, with a bore that is 2 mm wider and a stroke 6.3 mm longer. When BMW adds all this up, it amounts to a 5.0-liter V-8, although it is in fact 4941 cc, which we round to 4.9 liters. Then again, with 394 hp at 6600 rpm and 369 lb-ft of torque at 3800 rpm, BMW can go ahead and call it whatever it wants. Our only question is whether BMW will be able to sustain these numbers on the premium petrol available from U.S. pumps. A compression ratio of 11.0:

Driven: 2000 BMW M5 Is a Four-Door German Corvette

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