No it won’t swap its kidney grille for four ceiling rings. But what was saved only for the rear axle until now, all four of the new BMW M5’s rubber wrapped rings will be mercilessly whipped by a twin-turbo V8. You thought Chris Bangle was the change BMW never needed? (We like his designs though. Really). Here’s some more fodder to flare a debate.
The new four-wheel-drive BMW M5 will make its debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September this year. However, all might not be lost yet. The new four-wheel-drive model is described by senior BMW officials as not only the most powerful and fastest accelerating, but also the most dynamically capable and technically advanced M5 yet. For serious worshipers of the car, well they can only hope that this isn’t just some marketing spiel. Because in our books, the open air essence of the E60 M5’s V10 melody could never be replaced by the engine noise played through the F10’s speakers. The E60 was the lusty M5. With time, one could learn to love the F10 and its turbochargers too. But now, adding four-wheel-drive into the equation makes things too unemotional. It will drive better than all its predecessors for sure. Maybe even sell more. But that achievement will not make it earn the wallpaper spot the E60 occupies on a lot of screens. And we write this as we stare hopelessly at the X-Tomi render above.
The new BMW M5 will be powered by a tweaked version of the existing car’s twin-turbo V8 and will produce 600+hp, paired to a robotic eight-speed gearbox (SMG IIIs are never coming back). The new car will feature a re-engineered body structure which will be built using a greater amount of aluminium and hot formed high-strength steel. A number of weight saving techniques will be employed, including the usage of carbon fibre for the roof and the boot lid. Even with a mild increase in exterior dimensions and accounting the additional weight of the 4WD system, the new BMW M5 is claimed to weigh close to the 1,870kg weight of its predecessor.
Source: Autocar