Top Secret said:
Funny though, the E39 530i is 1605kg, yet the E60 530i is 1570kg - a decrease of over 30kg. So right from the outset, BMW was working with a larger, yet lighter car. But somehow, the E60 M5 turns out to be 100kg heavier than the E39 M5. Curious...
BMW_Dude, maybe it's just me, but the M5 is a performance car, not a cruiser, so if I buy an M5, I'm fully expecting a hardcore performance car, not some la-di-da cruiser with 'only' 400HP. I don't want all these modes! I just want one! 507HP, race-bred suspension - take it or leave it.
Top Secret I think you're being entirely irrational. When you're spending over
$200,000 on a
luxury sports sedan (which, despite what you say, is
exactly what it is: I don't think the M5 has ever pretended to be a 'hardcore performance car') people simply expect to have a degree of luxury, a degree of 'liveability'. Think for a second of the target market of the M5. I would hazard to guess to say that it overwhelmingly consists of rich, affluent business executives looking for an extremely quick and very comfortable executive performance sedan. The potency and 'hardcore' philosophy you say is necessary in an M car would almost undoubtedly alienate them, so much so that BMW wouldn't even dream to sell anywhere near the numbers of M5s they do. Not to sound demeaning or anything, but mate, you're 15 and a big fan of modified Japanese performance cars - frankly I don't think your taste in cars is anywhere near that of what the vast majority of potential M5 buyers would be. Furthermore, many would of course own another 'weekend' car, whether it would be a 911, Z4, whatever: while of course the M5 is a potent and extremely nubile performance sedan, I somehow don't think the target market of the M5 is looking for a stripped-out, raw, unforgiving and technology-free sedan. They're simply looking for an extremely quick, comfortable executive cruiser fundamentally to sit in traffic in on the way to and from work. A sad reality - sometimes we must wake up to it.
You paint the E39 as some glorified, epitome of M design and philosophy, free from the extraneous and superfluous trappings of 21st century technology. As warot so rightly pointed out, the E39 M5 was far from this: keep in mind that the M5 is placed
higher than the 540i (now 550i) in the lineup so will always have more luxury items/options than the top non-M model - again, it's simply something the market expects. Dunno if you've ever been in an E39 M5 (or indeed any M car?) but it had essentially every gadget BMW offered at the time - from a hefty sound system right down to a car phone. As warot again rightly pointed out, iDrive just (arguably) simplified all the controls for these items - instead of many buttons the E60 now has one essential button. As for the P400/P500 modes, of course it's not necessary but in my mind it makes perfect sense - in the vast majority of circumstances (round town driving), not only would 400hp (I'll write that out for you again, maybe it hasn't sunken in - FOUR HUNDRED HORSEPOWER) be more than adequate, in my mind P500 would add risk, more than anything, to the around-town driving experience. As has already been mentioned, if an M5 owner (which is, to reiterate, not you, nor someone I believe in remotely the same mindset or circumstance) desires to smoke a riced-up 200sx at the lights, or wants to do a few quick turns through a nice road, he only needs press a button, and, vua la, the full potency beast is unleashed. Again though; the car in most of its practical applications would
not be in need of the full 500hp so I can see exactly why engeneers decided on the feature.
Also you were complaining about the jerkiness of the SMG transmission in Auto mode which in my mind contradicts your philosophy of driving involvement - the simple answer is to not use auto mode - as just_me pointed out, it's essentially a transmission designed to be driven with, not to 'drive you', or whatever your phrase is.
And to answer your question 'is all this stuff necessary' or 'does it make it a better car?' I'll ask you a question back - are the vast majority of features we see in our cars (or to put it more generally, anything we own) necessary? Of course they stinking aren't - I think if you took out all the so-called 'unnecessary' features in the E60 M5 (or even, God forbid, the E39) you'd be left with a pretty empty car. The thing is, the M5 was never intended to be an instrument of necessity, it was
always, and always will be, an instrument of excess - excess performance, excess pampering, excess prestige, excess price, and, sorry to say, excess weight.
At the end of the day, when you take a look at the cars the M5 competes against and what they offer, I'd say it provides an extremely well balanced blend of extreme and brutal performance, put in an appealing package that is accessible and relevant to its intended market.
In my mind it's irrational to attack a car for being something it's not even though it was never intended to be that in the first place. If you want a stripped-out no-nonsense racer, buy one - simple as that.
