CarBrandLogos archive · BMW · 1984
A hand-built saloon with a racing engine, and the template for everything that followed.
Discover the storyPhoto: HLW · CC BY-SA 3.0
The story
Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the BMW M5, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.
01
The idea was simple enough to seem obvious afterwards: take the M1's engine and put it in a five-seat saloon nobody would look at twice.
2007-2010 BMW M5 sedan 01 · OSX · Public domain
02
The first M5, on the E28 5 Series, was shown at Amsterdam in 1984 and built by hand at BMW Motorsport's Preussenstrasse works — around 2,200 cars over three years, each taking around two weeks. The M88/3 straight-six made 286 hp in European form, enough to make it the fastest production saloon in the world at launch, and the car wore almost nothing to say so: no spoiler, no badging beyond a discreet M5 on the boot, and the standard 5 Series shell.
2007-2010 BMW M5 sedan 02 · OSX · Public domain
03
That restraint became the model's identity. The E34 that followed was still hand-assembled and gained a 3.8-litre version of the same engine; the E39 of 1998 switched to a 4.9-litre V8 and is the generation most often named as the best; the E60 of 2004 fitted a 5.0-litre V10 revving to 8,250 rpm and a sequential gearbox that few people enjoyed. Turbocharging arrived with the F10 in 2011 and all-wheel drive with the F90 in 2017.
2006 BMW M5 - Flickr - The Car Spy · The Car Spy · CC BY 2.0
04
The G90 of 2024 is a plug-in hybrid weighing well over two tonnes, which has drawn the obvious complaints. It is also, by some distance, the fastest M5 yet built.
At a glance
Produced
1984–presentTechnical specification
Badge at launch
This is the marque emblem that accompanied the M5's era. The full identity timeline is documented in the brand archive.
Explore the logo history →Contemporaries from the 1980s
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