Few things stir the souls of M-car fans like driving on the Nürburgring. Most of us don't get that opportunity very often—if ever—so we must settle for videos of BMW's test-driving engineers hammering the Nordschleife in the latest M prototypes.
The most recent offering seen navigating that quaint forest road through the Eifel mountains is the F90 M5, complete with camouflage graphics and fake body panels attached with sheet-metal screws. Ouch! BMW attempts to hide the car’s lines with that deception, but it can’t hide the car’s power, handling, and sound from the spy camera.
In this recent test session, we see the next-generation M5 with larger air intakes in the front bumper cover, cross-drilled rotors, and the M signature quad tailpipes.
What we don’t see is whether or not this car has the rear-wheel drive a true M car deserves, or all-wheel drive in an attempt to tame the ever-increasing beastly horsepower and torque BMW is building into its higher-performance cars. Rumors are that the next M5 will start at 600 horsepower, but since that’s already the power figure of the newly announced BMW M760i with its M Performance engine, we’re wondering if BMW is ready to put the next M5 into a higher category with a 600-plus horsepower, true M motor.
All-wheel drive is certainly one way to help owners handle the extra grunt. Frank van Meel, head of BMW M, implied that last year, saying, “If we continue the power increases in the future—especially regarding torque and also horsepower—then probably the next generation M5 and M6 will have so much torque and power that we need to think about those solutions.”
To soften the blow for the purists, van Meel also said, “So if we go on a direction of four-wheel drive, for us it will really be like a rear-wheel drive with more traction.” We took that to mean all-wheel drive with a heavy rear-wheel bias is a distinct possibility, and that if it is going to happen, this next-generation M5 is where it is most likely to happen.
Another question, especially for American M car devotees, is if the next M5 will be offered with a manual transmission. To hear BMW executives talk, the U.S. market is the only thing keeping manual gearboxes in the catalog, and they would much prefer to go all DCT and automatics.
We hope BMW will officially take the wraps off the F90 M5 sometime this year, but it’s not likely we will see a production model before 2017 or even 2018.—Scott Blazey
[Photos and video courtesy of Bimmerpost.]
