Sreten Milisavljevic, better known as M539 Restorations online, is a huge BMW enthusiast. One of his most loved project cars is Raleigh, a 2007 model year BMW M5 that originally came with the SMG III automated manual. Converted to a six-speed manual, this car is one of the highest-mileage E60s out there.
At one point, when Sreten pushes the old girl to roughly 285 kilometers per hour (177 miles per hour), the digital odometer shows a staggering 246,665 kilometers. In old money, that converts to 153,271 miles or thereabouts.
The high-speed run wouldn't have been possible without replacing the starter motor, which is a pain in the you-know-what due to its location. The starter chills out in the V of the naturally-aspirated V10. In other words, a lot of stuff needs to be dropped in order to access it.
Given the sedan's age and mileage, Sreten also replaced the rod bearings for extra peace of mind. The big question is, how much power and how many pound-feet of torque got out of the S85 in the past 16 years? The answer might come as a surprise to people who aren't aware of how BMW likes to roll with its six- and eight-cylinder powerplants.
The Bavarian automaker has a thing of underpromising and overdelivering. Even the B58 that serves as the basis for the S58 in the current-generation M2 is more powerful and torquier than advertised. The B58 that BMW supplies to Toyota for the Supra counts as well. Or – better said – Magna Steyr in Austria because Toyota doesn't build the fifth-gen Supra in-house.
Turning our attention back to the S85 of the manual-converted E60, the dyno graph shows 514.3 ps and 495.8 Nm of torque, meaning 507.2 horsepower and 365.6 pound-feet. Back when this fellow was brand-spanking new, the 5.0-liter V10 was advertised with 507 ps (500 horsepower) and 520 Nm (383 pound-feet).
Impressive, innit? On the other hand, this generation of the M5 does have a bad reputation because of the aforementioned SMG III automated manual. Only the US market received a factory-installed manual, which BMW produced in extremely limited numbers. How limited? Only 1,366 examples of the breed. The E60 ended production in December 2009 after 19,564 vehicles were finished, whereas the M5 Touring is even rarer than US manuals at 1,025 vehicles. Series production of the station wagon ended in April 2010.
Veering off on a slight tangent, BMW is currently preparing to unleash the all-new 5er and the first-ever i5. The M5 is also returning, albeit with plug-in hybrid assistance for its twin-turbo V8. Not the S63 of the F10 generation, but the new S68 of the XM and X7 M60i.
According to hearsay, the sedan-bodied M5 will be joined by a long-roofed sibling. The codenames for the next-gen M5 are G90 with four doors and G99 with five. Their tentative production start dates are July 2024 for the sedan and November 2024 for the station wagon.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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