Fueled by the ongoing Cold War enmity between the Soviet Union and the United States, the 1960's space race not only landed Neil Armstrong on the moon but also produced one of the most powerful, heart-thumping machines man has ever made: the Saturn V rocket. It took more than a decade to come up with the final design of the Saturn V and the Apollo spacecraft that it would blast unwitting astronauts into space with.
Although it may have felt like ten years for car zealots, BMW's nearly two-year M5 hiatus came to an end last fall with the introduction of their new super sedan.
The last M5--sold here between 2000 and 2003--was a perennial Q-ship fave, and decidedly the Mac Daddy of BMW's E39 platform. (The E in BMW's E-code stands for Entwicklung, which means evolution in German). With its hand-built, 4.9-litre vee-eight that was developed specifically for the car, most would concede that the E39 M5's 394 horsepower and 368 foot-pounds of torque power ratings were enough to keep it at the top of the Q-ship pop charts. But the current automotive arms race meant that de nuer E60 M5 needed even more cajones to go into battle properly armed--can you say "ten cylinders"?
Beyond sharing a need for speed, the Saturn V and M5 share Teutonic roots as German-born Wernher von Braun led the rocket's design. Stretching the comparison to BMW's new land-based M5 rocket, on the launch pad the Saturn V would have stood 10,917 centimetres taller,
weighed 2,810,453 kilograms heavier, and at full throttle, its five first-stage engines would have produced a thundering 7,599,617 million pounds of torque more at liftoff than the ballsiest Bimmer.
OK, so the new M5's 500 horsepower and 383 pound-foot of torque vee-ten engine doesn't hold a candle to the bad boy Apollo rocket when it comes to absolute numbers. But the first time you push the M5's throttle you'll feel as if you're rotating the planet on its own axis. Once the big, ten-cylinder mill zings to its 7,750 r.p.m. limit in first gear, flip the steering-wheel-mounted upshift paddle to engage the second cog in the computer-controlled manual clutch Sequential Manual Gearbox (SMG) and the meaty 285/35ZR19 rear rubber wiggles a desperate dance for traction. You'll need to flip to third quickly, and by now you're looking at jail time if you hit the redline. Maximum speed is 250 kilometres per hour, not that I would have any firsthand knowledge...
Like the E39 M5, BMW has provided a "power" button next to the console gear shift. Untouched, you're toodling around with only 400 h.p.; engaged, and the engine's ten individual throttle butterflies completely open and you get the advertised 500--106 more than the previous M5's vee-eight and 140 more than a current eight-cylinder 550i. It has to be
the silliest button in autodom. Like the "loud" button on old stereo systems, who's not going to leave this switched on permanently?
To access all of the new M5's prodigious power, you'll need to make friends with the aforementioned--and mandatory--seven-speed SMG tranny. Simply put, it's a regular gearbox with an automatic clutch. But reining in all of that horsepower without expensively explosive events down in the oily bits is anything but simple. Relying on computing power that NASA's Apollo engineers would never have been able to comprehend, SMG allows you to leave it in drive, or a sport version of drive, or swap gears via the console gear shifter or the paddle shifters. BMW claims this new and improved SMG is technically more sophisticated than previous iterations, but auto mode is still herky-jerky in stop-and-start driving. There's yet another console button that adjusts the tranny's shift aggressiveness from on-my-way-to-church to bye-bye-Viper by altering shift speed and clutch slip. At times, in the less aggressive mode, the gearbox suffers a delay while the electronics search for the appropriate gear. Even without the crowd-pleasing launch-mode feature that North American M5 owners have been denied, the new car can spank off zero to 100 kilometres per hour runs well under five seconds.
 |
| (Photo: John LeBlanc) |
The last M5--sold here between 2000 and 2003--was a perennial Q-ship fave, and decidedly the Mac Daddy of BMW's E39 platform. (The E in BMW's E-code stands for Entwicklung, which means evolution in German). With its hand-built, 4.9-litre vee-eight that was developed specifically for the car, most would concede that the E39 M5's 394 horsepower and 368 foot-pounds of torque power ratings were enough to keep it at the top of the Q-ship pop charts. But the current automotive arms race meant that de nuer E60 M5 needed even more cajones to go into battle properly armed--can you say "ten cylinders"?
Beyond sharing a need for speed, the Saturn V and M5 share Teutonic roots as German-born Wernher von Braun led the rocket's design. Stretching the comparison to BMW's new land-based M5 rocket, on the launch pad the Saturn V would have stood 10,917 centimetres taller,
 |
| (Photo: John LeBlanc) |
OK, so the new M5's 500 horsepower and 383 pound-foot of torque vee-ten engine doesn't hold a candle to the bad boy Apollo rocket when it comes to absolute numbers. But the first time you push the M5's throttle you'll feel as if you're rotating the planet on its own axis. Once the big, ten-cylinder mill zings to its 7,750 r.p.m. limit in first gear, flip the steering-wheel-mounted upshift paddle to engage the second cog in the computer-controlled manual clutch Sequential Manual Gearbox (SMG) and the meaty 285/35ZR19 rear rubber wiggles a desperate dance for traction. You'll need to flip to third quickly, and by now you're looking at jail time if you hit the redline. Maximum speed is 250 kilometres per hour, not that I would have any firsthand knowledge...
Like the E39 M5, BMW has provided a "power" button next to the console gear shift. Untouched, you're toodling around with only 400 h.p.; engaged, and the engine's ten individual throttle butterflies completely open and you get the advertised 500--106 more than the previous M5's vee-eight and 140 more than a current eight-cylinder 550i. It has to be
 |
| (Photo: John LeBlanc) |
To access all of the new M5's prodigious power, you'll need to make friends with the aforementioned--and mandatory--seven-speed SMG tranny. Simply put, it's a regular gearbox with an automatic clutch. But reining in all of that horsepower without expensively explosive events down in the oily bits is anything but simple. Relying on computing power that NASA's Apollo engineers would never have been able to comprehend, SMG allows you to leave it in drive, or a sport version of drive, or swap gears via the console gear shifter or the paddle shifters. BMW claims this new and improved SMG is technically more sophisticated than previous iterations, but auto mode is still herky-jerky in stop-and-start driving. There's yet another console button that adjusts the tranny's shift aggressiveness from on-my-way-to-church to bye-bye-Viper by altering shift speed and clutch slip. At times, in the less aggressive mode, the gearbox suffers a delay while the electronics search for the appropriate gear. Even without the crowd-pleasing launch-mode feature that North American M5 owners have been denied, the new car can spank off zero to 100 kilometres per hour runs well under five seconds.