Continuing the Uber Saloon Legacy

I remember the first time I heard someone waxing lyrical about an M5. “It should not be able to move that fast with 4 passengers in it” This person was a friend who owned an E30 M3 at the time and told me about his first experience in an E34 M5 3.8 Nurburgring Edition. The M5 was the bench mark Uber Saloon.

Since Evolve’s inception in 2007 the M5 has paid an important part of our history. Not only the tuning, the races but also the fact that each one double up as my family car so still had to daily drivable.

Starting with the E39 M5 it was the first car we developed hardware on from headers, intakes and all the way to an intercooled supercharger kit.

Circumstances allowed us to recently buy the very E39 M5 that we developed the supercharger on for our customer all those years ago.

The E39 M5 was different to most M cars that had come before it because it had a lot of useable torque. It was like a 4 door muscle car and to do this day many people will say its the best M5.

The next M5 was very different. Slightly larger (yes this becomes a running theme!) but with a very different and unique powertrain. Gone was the torquey V8 mated to a manual gearbox and in came a high revving V10 mated to a SMG gearbox. The first time I drove one I couldn’t believe how fast it was compared to its supercar rivals of the time. It felt like driving a 4 door supercar and sounded like one too with the right exhaust. 200 mph sir? It was possible and indeed it was the first car achieved this in.

Again we developed a lot of parts including headers, X Pipes, Switchable valved exhausts and ECU Tuning. It was also the car that introduced us to the infamous VMAX200 events which we attended in the M5 and did very well in. Some results below.

The next M5 would be probably the most controversial. Having recently moved to forced induction with the 1M BMW introduced the first turbo charged M5. The F10 M5 was a torque monster compared to the outgoing model and for the first time as M5 had a DCT gearbox which was a vast improvement over the outgoing SMG.

For me the F10 was a much nicer place to be, had better build quality and interior than the E60. The introduction of forced induction also meant that this M5 was very tuneable. Again we went to many VMAX200 events and had many memorable races. The ones that are etched in my memory include being 4 up against a Ferrari 458 Speciale and being very close to a Pagani Huayra.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm2JSES

The next M5 was a revolution. The first one with switchable xDrive and for me better than the F10 in every way. BMW stepped up the build and quality of materials in a big way and the car performed like a 4 door R35 GTR. It will always have a special place in my heart as it was the first BMW we took to 1000 BHP and because of the many crazy races we had with this car on the now very famous CarWow Youtube channel.

This is one of my favourites of the many videos they made of the car.

A very long winded way to introduce our latest project car some might say but I wanted to add some context. The M5 has always been an important car to Evolve but also to me personally and I can’t wait to get stuck into the G90.

Its too soon to give my thoughts about it fully but I will say its more of an evolution than the revolution that the F90 was.