Bullet-proof M5

Newswheel staff :: 30 May 2005 :: Filed under Saloon, BMW, BMW 5 Series, Europe & UK

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UK snaps up BMW’s ultimate get-away car

What, friends, do we already know about BMW’s new five-litre, V10 M5? Well, it boasts 507 eager horses which, if ungoverned, can propel this speediest of saloons along at a buttock-clenching claimed maximum of 205mph along with a sub 5 second 0-60 time. Faster than a speeding bullet, you might say?

Yup, and therein lies the irony because that old idiom’s not quite accurate enough for some. According to Lee Connolly, 5 and 6 Series product manager for BMW GB, “Forty of the new M5s ordered so far by UK customers have been requested with the £1,135 bullet proof glass option”. Heads of industry and footy club owners (not players) are the rumoured customers.

The UK is the third largest market for BMW M models behind the US and Germany. 580 M5s will be available to the UK this year and BMW GB expects demand to even out to between 450 and 500 units a year. Connolly added, "Advance orders for the M5 suggest they are all sold until mid 2007, so the challenge we have is to keep the customers interested. Part of this process will be the Rockingham Driving experience where customers and potential buyers will undergo driver-training programmes and these are being organised directly with the clients by BMW’s UK dealers.”

We wonder whether, perhaps at extra cost, this might involve dodging AK47 fire emitted from the sunshine roof of a speeding 750iL.

Linkage:
Classic Driver story