I am clearly not making any new revelations by selecting this as my favourite M5, however do you know that one of the best BMW M5 ever made nearly did not occur? And when it did, it nearly had a turbocharged straight-six, not a V8.
Yeah – based on a really informative and expansive historical past piece on the S38 and M88 growth historical past on the MyE28 discussion board, BMW execs thought that the 540i and the not too long ago launched E36 M3 would fulfill the wants of E34 M5 homeowners, however you and I are each studying this questioning what on this planet they have been smoking. Did they anticipate E34 prospects to shell out for 2 vehicles? The fanatics weren’t completely satisfied, feeling that neither the M3 nor the 540i have been unique sufficient.
Sadly, the E34 handed many issues onto its progeny, however handbuilt development was not considered one of them, and when BMW lastly caved to calls for to construct the M5, it was on the identical line because the common 5 Sequence. However regardless of – the E39 chassis was completely elegant, and we kinda get why BMW executives thought it might need been ok with out an M badge. In line with Prime Gear, sooner or later, partly in response to the promise proven by the locally-tuned E34 Alpina B10 Bi-Turbo, Munich thought of taking the straight-six turbo route of a number of of its racecars.
As an alternative, we finally received a wonderful M62-based S62B50 V8 with 400 horsepower. It outsold the E34 in half the time.
