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.
What it does especially well is take you from one place to another very quickly and in quite a lot of luxury. If you want to overtake, or filter into faster-moving traffic, the oomph arrives in reassuring surges, so the capability makes it a particularly easy car to rub along with.
But it ain’t a sports car. I hesitate to use the words ‘sports saloon’, really. Nothing of this size really can be, but some do the noises and responses that make you go gooey better than others. And so far there has been an argument that a Mercedes-AMG E63 does that slightly better than the BMW. I’ve felt that the BMW is a more accommodating and easygoing, and ultimately a more capable car all round. But that AMG V8 makes the right noises.
And I think that’s what BMW is trying to address with the Competition. It has worked.
We’ve tried the M5 Competition in two places: first, a very long, very warm race track, half of which comprises corners. Second, on some very narrow, quite bumpy roads around it. Neither is the autobahn or wide, sweeping Germanic country road that would be best suited, you imagine, to an M5. (But they did quite suit the M2 Competition we tried in the same place.)
The surprise, then, was that it was great. I know, I know: you’re not going to take it to a race circuit. But do, just once, please, to be amazed at what it can do.
Join the debate
Add your comment
what a complete and utter
what a complete and utter glorios machine this thing nearly has 700hp, what a beast!!!!!!
I would have expected less...
The article went "south" the minute the chap mentioned a gain in weight which is the real "challenge". Sport really means light as possible and as stiff as possible so why not get rid of all the excess weight and have a more focused car, these cars have lost the plot and have just become a "hectors house / gin palace" when they should have been shorn of electric windows and any other weight inducing devices..wind up windows etc. In any case the 4 star rating is the outcome.
Yawn
Yet another hi-po car looking for a reason to exist....