Review of New M5
 

Sorry if this has already been posted...

http://cars.msn.co.uk/carnews/NewBMWM5sept2004/

Doesnt give much away in the looks dept. Performance figures and gadgets galore to dream of!

Exactly what I was thinking .. engineering to die for, looks to laugh at! Maybe it'll grown on ... the world.

I'm obviously in the minority, but I think it looks quite nice in those pictures.

A bit academic, but the lack of a proper manual gearbox would rule it out for me. I also like the looks of the new shape. For the same money you could probably get a manual 545i and have a few mods to get it reasonably close to the M5.

manual????? why?


you want wind up windows as well?


move with the times...its a 7 speed SMG.....why do yo want to slow things down with more pedals?

Because I hate automatics - even sequential ones. I also prefer wind up windows, lol. Anyway, I doubt that the difference in gearchange speed would worry me too much if I had 507 bhp to play with. Each to their own I suppose.

For the record, all previous M5's were manual only (IIRC) and they seemed to be rather popular. If I wanted an automatic M5 level car, I'd go to Alpina or Hartge. Maybe even consider an E55 AMG...

Current BMW's with SMGs have IDENTICAL performance figures to their proper manual equivelents.

The best computer to identify when and how to change gear is in our heads. The boffins have got close to replicating it, but they ain't smoking the cigars yet! :D

TBH, if I was the "type" of driver who wanted automatics, I'd say I would be dissapointed with the way SMGs shifts gears, and would prefer a good ol' fashoined hydraulic/electro hydraulic actuated clutches for each gear and smooth changes (i.e a normal autobox).

As for the engine, no Valvetronic yet...should be interesting to see if they can work it out on later models :D

And that write up - err why is it comparing the v10 engine to the F1 v10??? Bloody clueless BS'ing journos. If they ever looked at a stripped down F1 engine they'd see that it resembles absolutely nothing of that of any road engine on any production vehicle :rolleyes: Yes, there was a time when BMW used road going engines in their F1 cars, but those days are long gone!

SMG boxes are very efficient these days. Most can change gears much better than any of us could, with perfect throttle blips on down shifts too.

I think the point is, although SMG boxes are very advanced and are technically better than manual boxes, THEY ARE NOT AS FUN! The enjoyment in driving a fast car is not simply going fast, it's the experience, the involvement. The more you take away from the driver, the less involvement.

As said above SMGs are a lot more efficient than manual clutch cars now, thats why most racing, rally cars have them now.

They are bags of fun though :D