2006 BMW M5 - First Drive Review - Car and Driver (blog)
The M5 is, and always has been, the distillation of everything that makes BMW cars special. M division engineers, endowed with a streak of lunacy, take an already great BMW 5-series car and add power, improve its handling, and create a sedan that takes on dedicated sports cars. In this case, it's the new, 500-hp BMW M5, the moonshine of cars. The differences between a regular-production 5-series BMW and the no-holds-barred M5 have never been greater. In today's automotive world of economies of scale, mergers, and collaborations, it is rare for an automaker to design an engine that is entirely new, but the 90-degree, 5. 0-liter V-10 is an engine that must have skipped kindergarten because it... Press the button marked "power" next to the shifter, and you get 500 horsepower at 7750 rpm and 384 pound-feet of torque at 6100 rpm. On paper the rpm at which maximum torque is achieved seems a bit high, but variable valve timing and individual throttles for each cylinder allow the engine to enjoy low-end grunt and midrange power. Aside from the new engine there is a new transmission—the third generation of BMW's sequential manual gearbox (SMG)—that takes lessons learned from. Source: www.caranddriver.com
