The E60 sedan, as well as the E61 station wagon, have a bad reputation for their automated manual. The SMG-III can upshift in as little as 65 milliseconds in the most aggressive setting, yet BMW ultimately discontinued it from the M5 with a dual-clutch unit for the F10.
The F10 and subsequent F90, however, lack the aural pleasure of the E60 and E61, because a twin-turbo V8 doesn’t make the spine-tingling induction and exhaust sounds of a naturally-aspirated V10. BMW decided on this engine, plus the awful transmission mentioned earlier, due to the German automaker's involvement in Formula One with Sauber at that time.
Mike Fernie, the head of all things video at DriveTribe, had the DriveTribe M5 Touring swapped with a good ol’ manual tranny in July 2022. Rather than the stick shift that BMW used in the North America-spec M5, the E61 received an E92-sourced gearbox, because the North America-spec M5 manual is hard to come by in the United Kingdom. Even though the coding side is a bit tricky, the swap is pretty much a plug-and-play affair as per Darragh Doyle, the big kahuna of Banbury-based Everything M3s.
Richard Hammond had a drive in the manual-swapped M5 Touring one last time, as DriveTribe currently looks for a new and caring owner for it. A 2007 model that is currently listed on eBay with a high bid of £30,300 ($36,460 at current exchange rates), the car had been a stalwart of the DriveTribe channel throughout 2022. Finished in a dark blue over a black leather interior, this vehicle has 107,000 miles (172,200 km) on the clock.
“That gearbox takes it to the next level,” said Hammond. “This is a no-nonsense approach to going like hell. It plays well to the strength of a German car. The engineering, quality, and integrity. And just swapping cogs manually accentuates that feeling. And then there’s the noise…”
A sought-after collector’s car, the E61-generation M5 Touring ended production quite some time ago with 1,009 examples to its name.
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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