BMW M5 Competition 2018 review

Another week, another Competition version of a BMW. But unlike the M2 Competition we reviewed last week, the M5 Competition is an addition to the range rather than a replacement for the regular M.

There are a few prongs of thinking on this one. The biggest is that an M5 has a broader range of use than an M2 anyway, so there’s a reason for keeping both models in the line up. The standard M5 is for those who just want to potter around in a fast approximation of comfort and the M5 Competition is for those who want a bit more focus and driving keenness. Not many M5 owners are track-day goers, unsurprisingly, given that it’s a 1940kg, five-metre-long saloon car.

BMW reckons that, typically, 50% of a market will drive hard enough to pick the Competition version, though. A bit less in the UK: 30% is the estimate.

Other lines of thinking: I suspect there’s rather more margin on an M5 than an M2, so you can sell ’em both. And it’s not like there’s much of an engine difference between the two, either.

What do you get? More power, albeit only 25bhp, and the same amount of torque as before from the brawny 4.4-litre V8. That makes the headline figures 616bhp at 6000rpm and 553lb ft in a flat line from 1800rpm to 5800rpm, a 200rpm extension over the standard M5.

The engine is largely mechanically the same as it was. A bit of additional cooling accounts for the 10kg extra the Competition weighs over the standard M5 but, like the additional poke, I doubt that’s what you’ll notice the most about this new variant.

More likely is that you’ll feel the 7mm drop in ride height and new damper hydraulics and springs that are about 10% stiffer all round and are combined with an increase in camber at the front, with modified toe-links and anti-roll bars at the back. It slots into the range straight away and costs £96,205, which is £6500 more than the regular M5.

We rather like the regular car. You can read about one quite often, as we've got an M5 as a long-term test car and we’ve pitched it against its rivals a fair few times for videos, road tests and features, too.