A little over a year after the Geneva Auto Salon 2004 and the launch of the "Concept M5" BMW have started to deliver the new M5 to customers in Europe and Middle East and of course we wanted to find out, as soon as possible, how good the new M5 really is and if it could live up to it´s M5-badge. The specification surely sounds promising:

5-litre V10-engine producing 507 bhp and 520 NM of Torque.
Redline at 8250 rpm.
7-speed SMGIII gearbox which changes gears 20 % faster than the previous generation SMGII.

Our plan was to drive a E60 M5 from Stockholm, Sweden to the Swedish supersportscar manufacturer Koenigsegg on Friday evening. The following Saturday we had scheduled a factory presentation as well as to use their 1,6 km long landing strip to test and document the E60 M5 vs. M5 E39 of 2000 model year (5 liter V8 with 400 HP) and the E34 M5 Touring (340 HP straight-6 with a displacement of 3,8 liters) of 1995 model year. Later that evening the plans was to drive to Denmarks capital Copenhagen and then on the Saturday evening back home to Stockholm. We documented this roadtrip over these five pages, so be sure not to miss any of the five pages. This is the first page. We are sorry that the loadingtime of the pages takes time but we didn't want to cut down on image quality.

The plan for the Sunday was to go to an airfield we had rented north of Stockholm to test the dynamics as well as the straight-line performance of the M5 compared to direct competitors (Mercedes E55 AMG Kompressor) as well as exotics outside it's class, equipped with twin-turbo boxerengines as well as large-displacements V-10.

Between these two events our goal was to experience the M5 in daily-driving conditions: city driving, motorway driving, country road driving, driving with passengers, racing against other cars, what bystanders and fellow people in traffic thought about the car etc. After such a long trip with events like two airfields and trips to another country you are sure to really know the most of a car like this. During this weekend we did not have the time to visit a track and really put the car through it's paces, but we had to save something for later!

All in all this would be a little over 2500 km roadtrip covering a third of Sweden as well as parts of Denmark. This time and distance would allow us to really experience the new M5 and learn it's SMGIII-gearbox as well as the I-drive with the M-mode menu.


2,23 liter per 10 km is a consumption you should get used to in city driving. Although this was in S-mode and not in D-mode where the SMGIII chooses higher gears at lower speeds for lower fuel- consumption. Here you can see the engine oil temperature is around 90 degrees Celsius and you are free to rev the car to the limit of 8300 rpm. This can also bee seen at the changing yellow and red colored indications for maximum revs. 9878 km on the odometer which means it is broken in.

We truly achieved the above mentioned goal. We were in two capitals (Stockholm and Copenhagen) as well as between five and ten smaller towns in Sweden and we drove over 2500 km between Friday afternoon and Sunday afternoon. We met several E39 M5 owners during our trip, plus owners of other high-performance vehicles, and let them experience the car to see and hear their reactions and thoughts about the new M5. We experienced the power, the "fame" of driving this rare car, the small quirks and got a good overall picture thanks to the long distance and the different environments we drove the M5 in.

The car had just under 10 000 km on the odometer when we picked it up and on our way from Stockholm we managed to break the 10 000 km limit, just missing the photo opportunity at 10 001 km. The car was painted in the BMW M3 and M5 unique Interlagos Blue with black Merino full-leather interior. The Interlagos Blue was first available on the M5 and has a purplish hint in the blue colour. It should be noted that Interlagos Blue often looks darker than it really is in the pictures and is a colour that gets much attention. The wheels are standard 19' Radialspoke 166M and standard high-gloss Shadow Line exterior trim. The interior lists are in brushed Alu Shadow.

This particular car was equipped with the following options:

Glass sunroof
Park Distance Control (PDC) in front and rear
Seat Heating in rear (front standard for Sweden)
Lumbar support
Self-dimming rearmirrors
TV
Heads-up Display (HUD)
Voice Activation
Prepared for Bluetooth
Navigation Professional
CD-changer for 6 compact discs
Hi-Fi System Professional (Logic 7)
Full-leather Merino

New price in Sweden without the options is 827 000 SEK and with these options it comes up to 1 015 500 SEK. This price might seem high but after our weekend we learned that this price is extremely competitive judging by it´s abilities and what cars it can be compared to. More on that further ahead. The first examples was just delivered to Swedish consumers and also in other countries such as Germany, Switzerland and also in the Middle East as United Arab Emirates.

We picked up the car on a Friday afternoon and went to take pictures on it on locations around Stockholm the first hours until traffic had cleared so we could drive down south. During the drive around Stockholm we immediately noticed the effect of Interlagos Blue and M5 E60 = "rock star" fame with people staring and later on cars even overtook us several times to take pictures with digital cameras and DV-videos (if you are one of these reading this please e-mail me at gustav@bmwm5.com). This is from all kinds of people: Toyotas filled with kids to Porsche 996 Turbo Convertible owners.

The picture above is slightly blurry since the driver of the M5 could not resist to feel the V-10 power.

One of the first things we noticed while driving around town is the big difference between the different EDC-modes. Especially when driving over smaller speed-bumps and on cobble-stone roads. With the EDC in Sport-mode the ride is very stiff but with Comfort-mode activated it´s actually pretty smooth. As a follower might already know the BMW M5 can have numerous different programs for the SMG-gearbox. SMG means Sequential Manual Gearbox and has a electronically operated clutch. D is automatic mode and can be set in five different stages: D1-D5. And as in cars with normal automatic gearboxes it has a kick-down function. The manual mode can be set in six different levels: S1 to S6 where S6 only can be activated when DSC (Dynamic Stability Control) is completely off.

In D-mode you immediately notice the difference between the levels. D1 is the softest setting making the M5 suitable for my 68-year old father, driving the M5 as an automatic (actually true, but after a while he tried S5 P500S mode more and more with more pushing on the on the +/-pedals...). In D1-mode the M5 could easily choose 7th gear in say 70 km/h for maximum relaxing while slowly cruising with a minimum of gearchanges and when the gearchange happened it was very soft. In D5 mode there was not a large diffference in the speed of the gearchange itself (as opposed to S-mode) but more that the gearchanges where higher up in the rev-band compared to the D1-mode and it stayed longer in gears and revved higher. So the D-program might at first glance unnecessary but with this mode it can be a direct competitor to the automatic "competitors" cars without loosing the enthusiasts who will use the S5 and S6 modes exclusively.

Also I can confess that after a day of racing with exotics (and winning) it is nice to just put back the seatrest some degrees and put in D1-mode. Also it's better for your drivers license... But the more we drove the car the less we used the D-mode because the S-mode changes gears almost as smooth and you don´t have to worry about that the gearbox will select the wrong gear or hesitate when accelerating. The main-reason is of course that the S-mode is so much more fun and the gearshifts are exact shift after shift, race after race. The throttle blips while down-shifting sounds and feelsgreat. The throttle blips are louder the more you have the gas pedal pressed down it seems like. In anycase, if you are driving for example in S5 mode with S500 and driving on smaller roads in a town close to buildings you cna be surprsied how loud those blips are sometimes. Loud enough to make bystanders turn around. So sometimes it can be good to have S1 only for make these blips less prominent.

Below some of the pictures we took during the Friday afternoon in the Stockholm area are shown:

The wheels are not as on the E39 M5 in Chrome Shadow and thus have not any sign of chrome on them. I think they looks very good and really enhances the looks of the M5. Chromed kidneyy as on the 545i and the diesel-models. On the picture above you barely see the black inserts on the M5-unique rearview-mirrors. The front wheels incl. standard tires for Sweden weights 24,75 kg and the rear wheels weights 26,4 kg. Keep in mind that these are 19 inch wheels and 285 mm wide in the rear.





Interlagosblue is not the colour for anyone who wants to be discrete. It's purplish tone might make people look at the M5 because of the colour and not the car. However the more you lived with the colour the more you liked it and I would say this would be my choise among the standard M5 colours along with a BMW Individual interior.

The M5 is offered in these standard colours:

• Interlagos Blue (M3 and M5 unique)
  
• Sepang Bronze (M5 unique)
  
• Silverstone II (M5 unique)
  
• Alpine White
• Black Sapphire Metallic
• Silver Grey Metallic

and if you would like you can order these special exteriour colours from BMW M departement BMW Individual:

• Sepia Metallic
• Messing
  
• Diamant
• Malachitgreen
• Blue Onyx
• Carbon Black

For any other BMW Individual, BMW colour or any other manufactrers colour BMW Individual coiuld make produce this but my guess is that it will come to a higher cost than the above mentioned BMW Individual colours.

BMW's judgement not to have foglights did not do the the M5 no harm since they were hardly used for the correct occations anyway, by judging on the BMW you see in traffic.

We did not want to take the ferry to Finland.



The M5 looks good from the rear-side. I think the rear-lights looks alot better than the new 3-series.

Alot of power and a narrow road. From outside the new M5 is a very big car but the moment you drive the first meters it is like a nimble sportscar. BMW have done an incredible job to camoflauge the weight of this car. We were lucky and avoided several deers on this small road. If you spot one deer a good thing is to take it easier ahead. The new M5 retains it's predecessors weight of 1755 kg (DIN) thanks to several light-weight constuctions. However it does not retains it's predecessors amount of power...

Braking from higher speeds on uneven surfaces like the road above is no drama at all.

To illustrate the size of the new M5 we parked it next to a Ferrari F355. The M5 looks like it could run over this Ferrari. Here we used the M5 electronically folding mirrors button first introduced on the previous generation E39 M5.

The The darker it got outside the more that got reflected in the colour of the car.

Naturally we had to stop to look at the favourite TV-show for a few hours...


Good news: You sit in the new M5 with a V-10 with over high-revving 500 HP and you see an Audi RS6 avant. Bad news: you have lost your license several times, it's a 30 km/h limit in the city, your in the city centre and there are "Polis" everywhere. And they really would like to see that new M5 closer.


Here we parked the M5 near a Topazblue M3 E46.


You really noticed the different designs of the M3 and the M5 and how much larger the E60 5-series is compared to the E46 3-series.

Our original plan on the Friday afternoon was to try to show the new M5 to the King of Sweden Carl XVI Gustaf. Although we were quite sure that the chance was very small there could be one small possiblity, since our King is an avid BMW M5 enthusiast who have owned over four BMW M5 staring with the first generation E28 M5 in the mid-eighties. I have personally seen him in his LeMans Blue E39 BMW M5 with black exclusive interiour on his way to the Royal Palace where he works. I have also met him on one occation where he just had paid a visit to BMW Sweden to see when the new BMW M5 would be available. This was in the summer of 1997.

Naturally the honour guard stood at attention when they saw a new blue M5 pass by: at first sight they thought it was the King. For the photo they were more relaxed.

We did not want to enter the inner courtyard uninvited.

Here is the M5 in the street of Old Town in Stockholm with houses and streets dating back more than 500 years. Luckily we had EDC in Comfort as well as P500 setting (not P500S) when driving on these small roads.


Scenery of Stockholm as seen form the southern parts of the city center. A dull spring afternoon.

We were lucky it did not start to rain this afternoon.


Here you clearly see the aggressive presence of the M5. Also that Interlagosblue can have a darker tone when the sun is not shining on the colour.

Reverse is engaged the same way as a manual BMW: left and then up. Yes, the E60 5-series got unusually bright lights when reversing.


A high mounted center brake LED light for fast feedback of the drivers intentions. This M5 has not been equipped with the no-cost option rear spoiler for higher stability during higher-speeds.


Navigation Professional has a split-screen function, just as on the 16/9 Navigation system in the E39. This is very useful and comes in handy for having one arrow-view for the passenger and one for the driver ;-) Here we have 700 km to go until our destination in the south of Sweden. Life could be worse! Also, finally we managed to start a new destination to get rid of "Do not use motorways" option.

0,8 liters of oil in the engine when we started.

On the next page we are on our way to the south of Sweden and Ängelholm, where Koenigsegg is located. Click on the "2" for the second page below.

Order some of the the racingvideos below. $15 excl. shipping worldwide. See trailer for the video-CD here. Several races filmed from inside and outside some of the cars. The video is in stock and will be shipped within 2 days from ordering online. Three video trailer on this link, go here. Trailers are: from the second airfield with short clips from the exotics, a full race versus the E55 AMG and when the M5 drives on a highway.

Click here to go to m5board.com online ordering of media with worldwide delivery from USA. Payments via credit card.

For an example of a picture on this page and one that is in highresolution, see the image below. The source image for that picture is this image. The images are 3072 pixel wide and 2304 pixel high (3072x2304). So, this is the high-res and this is the low-res.

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