25th January 2003, 23:51
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#6
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Fellow Member (>400)
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Johnny,
Thanks for confirming that your car is "60" - it was me that flagged you down as you were leaving the Hestercombe event last year!
Interesting, the delay between build and registration on your car -mine is "113" which is to an unusual spec (Cirrus blue, "standard" type cloth seats but with heating and centre armrests, options not available with the otherwise standard sports seats). It was definitely built to special order.
My car was built in Week 2 of 1987 and PDI'd at BMW Motorsport on 28-1-87. The car went to the Isle of Man and was registered there in March.
On the other hand I believe "115" - presumably built at about the same time as mine, wasn't registered until early 1988 - by BMW GB. On the basis that your car was similarly delayed, this probably goes some way to exploding the myth that the M5 was built to special order only!
I would venture that BMW AG required BMW GB to take a certain number of cars each model year - where specific customer orders weren't immediately forthcoming I would guess that BMWGB (?) would order cars for stock to a specification they thought they could sell. At £33,000 or so (a 30% uplift on an M535i/535iSE) it was clearly never going to be a big seller.
No doubt the cars would be held at the Thorne import centre until a customer could be found - in the case of "115" described above the launch of the E34 would encourage GB to register it for use as senior management transport.
Having now seen quite a few over the years, my observations suggest there are quite a few GB M5's which are (or were when new) almost completely standard, leather trim probably being the most commonly specified option (metallic paint was standard).
I have seen many cars in the then increasingly popular grey/silver/black as well as the traditional bright red. No doubt BMW GB would look at colours selling well on other top-flight models and specify stock units accordingly.
All of the above is guesswork/anorak/academic interest only - anyone with better ideas, fire away!
As for getting cars together, the most I have ever seen in the same place/event is 4! Worth a try though......
Regards
Mfiver
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