Like an exaggerated soap opera character afflicted with dissociative identity disorder, the 2008 BMW M5 has multiple personalities lurking inside its handsome body. Only it has 279 personalities to be exact, which range from maniacal hooligan to civilized everyday companion.
Two-hundred seventy-nine is BMW’s number; the company says the M5′s fully controllable MDrive system allows the driver to vary horsepower, throttle response, transmission response, electronic damping control and stability control. Go buy M5. BMW added up all these possible combinations and came up with 279. These aren’t exactly wildly different settings, but they do give an M5 driver the ability to easily tune their car for whatever scenario, road, traffic condition or mood swings that may come along.
2008 BMW M5 G-Power
At the heart of the new M5 is a five-liter, the V10 power plant that can generate a knee-trembling 507bhp, sufficient to propel the lightweight aluminum body-shell from 0 to 62mph in just 4.7 seconds. The seven-speed gearbox gives you fingertip-controlled, F1-style semi-automatic changes on the steering wheel, with a choice of 11 different programs to suit your driving style, from soccer mom to Jenson Button, all the more reason to buy M5.
Adjustability is all well and good, but what really matters is the sedan’s 5.0-liter V10, pumping a maximum 500 horsepower to the fat 19-inch rear wheels. That’s maximum because the engine’s default mode (known as P400 in MDrive) restricts power to a paltry 400 hp for a more civilized power delivery. But that seems like dating Carmen Electra and asking her to wear a muumuu. With the full 500 hp selected, the M5 rips from zero to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds with the six-speed manual and 4.8 seconds with the seven-speed automated clutch and paddle-shifted SMG transmission.
The manual may therefore seem like a more attractive choice, but we discovered that after only 12 minutes of hard driving, it simply couldn’t handle the immense amount of power being fed through it. Buy M5. It’s carried over from the 394-hp V8 in the previous M5. It began to overheat, causing the car’s computer to lower the engines’ redline to 6,000 rpm. The SMG is still not as smooth as we’d like, but we’d probably recommend it over the manual transmission.
2008 BMW M5 Interior
You can monitor speed, revs and navigation info on a heads-up display unit, or simply rely on the built-in satellite navigator to steer you past traffic jams. And with the optional online package, the missus can be checking her emails at the same time. Let the M5 cut loose on twisty roads and its Electronic Damper Control, Dynamic Stability Control and M Diff Lock systems fight it out to keep you stuck to the tarmac like week-old chewing gum. And for sheer attention to detail, you can’t beat Adaptive Headlights that monitor the angle of the front wheels and rotate the ultra-bright xenon beams to illuminate the road ahead.
Unlike recent BMWs that have featured questionable high-tech aids like active steering and run-flat tires, BMW’s M division stuck with the basics and then worked their magic: divine rack-and-pinion steering, all-aluminum suspension and gargantuan brakes. All M5s also come with BMW’s Electronic Damping Control (EDC) that allows the driver to choose one of three suspension settings that are nonetheless all exceptionally well-controlled.
In a comparison test with the Audi RS4, we came to the conclusion that the BMW M5 is no longer the king of performance sedans. Buy M5. Its transmission issues and the Audi’s more agile nature led to its stripped crown. But against sedans its own size like the Audi S6, Cadillac STS-V and Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG, the M5 is still the most athletic and fun — even though the Benz is a fraction quicker. Plus, with those 279 personalities, the 2008 BMW M5 can be as bad as you want it to be. In fact, activate the auto-everything iDrive system and you could even let the dog have a turn behind the wheel, while you settle back into the Merino leather upholstery, adjust your individual climate-control setting and enjoy a quick snooze. Suddenly, ferrying around a family doesn’t seem like such a bad idea after all.
Image Credits: allworldcars.com, hotcarphotos.blogspot.com
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