It’s been a dream. I drove my favourite car for eighteen months. Man, did my M5 deliver…

Every morning the garage door rolled up to reveal that chunky arse and four bazooka exhausts, my heart missed a beat. Or two. Same when I found it waiting obediently for me in car park or street parking. See, each time I saw it I reminded myself what M5 is all about. And it delivered every time.

Every driving aspect of M5 is mesmeric – its 500 horse 500 Newton 5-litre V10 with 4 cams and 40 valves, the strongest computer ever controlling it all and a maniac seven-speed gearbox driving through that hooligan BMW M diff, offer a package you’ll only otherwise find in Enzo or Carrera GT. It’s that good.

The gearbox – I am a voice against a thousand I know, but as a pure driving device it’s awesome. Don’t even try argue unless you too have driven 40 000 kilometres with SMG. I had no problem with it and I loved pretending I was hammering it when it banged through gears like an artillery attack every change. I’m going to miss it when DKG comes, even if the new one’s better – SMG sure has character.

But it’s a chic family limousine too, M5 – with plush leather pews for each of its four or even five occupants and more than enough space to swing that cat. The chairs are comfy and those side supports a hoot – so what if they’re gimmicks, they work well enough. The heads-up display is another gimmick, but cool, too.

And to drive, M5 is nothing less than sensational – floor it, paddle those gears and experience performance perfection. Handles well too, M5 – especially beyond the limit. Sorry if I ever scared you sideways – it makes that too easy to do. So yes, M5 is still the finest car in the world in my eyes. Nothing’s come near close to toppling it. Yet.

But M5 comes with its compromises. M pretty well masked Bangle’s abortion of a styling language – some chunky bits do well to lessen the effect of those Korean taillights and ridiculous eagle eyes. But they still bug me. And the crap 5 carries over into its M incarnation leaves much to be desired. IDrive is worse than Bangle’s horrible basic styling – by some long way, too.

How the hell can this – or any of the clones that copy it – be the future? How possibly? To work it effectively you need to stop the car for when you do use iDrive on the move you’re endangering yourself, everyone else in the car and anyone around you on the road. You can’t concentrate on that and drive coherently at the same time. I bet that thing would diminish even Michael Schumacher’s driving. I’d rather drive drunk.

Unhappily M also brought in a few things that took a bit to be desired. SMG as a tool for parking or reversing or pulling away on a steep gradient, is useless. So it’s worthy of criticism in that sense for sure. And so are all those stupid settings. Really BMW, who needs eleven driving modes? Two will do. Safe and Stupid.

Luckily the M-button pretty much does that – overrides all the nonsense and allows you to request the silly mode whenever you need it. I did all the time, but that’s me – my wife preferred a pretty aggressive set-up with DSC and the rest on. So why do we need eleven gearbox settings amplified to who knows how many other via so many ‘options’ nobody wants? Or needs.

Please M; prune that myriad confusion to just Safe and Stupid next time. So, even with all this I complain about since that paragraph ‘But’, I still rate M5 ten out of ten – positives so much outweigh the negatives such that we remain in credit over 100%.

But. Again. M5 was difficult to live with in other ways. Like no spare wheel – if you get a proper puncture you stay where you stop. Until a BMW type rescues you. Africa is no place for no spare wheel. On-call was brilliant though – only Bryanston’s easier than well beyond Upington.

And seventy litres for a 20 litre per 100 glutton means 300km on a tank is a challenge. Needs 100 at least.

BMW service let M5 down worst. No matter what we had in credit; poor dealer effort steals a star for sure. A minor recall saw it at a Northern Suburbs mob (look back to see which). They cocked it up so bad M5 went back to BMW for a week to undo the mess. When I reported the fact, a lawyer’s letter followed. Poor. Very poor.

I asked another dealer to repair hail damage at the same time as other stuff because BMW demands Authorised panel shops do any bodywork. And the dealer expected a six grand backhand. Pity that, because its effort was otherwise quite good.

So now you see nine stars instead of ten as this incredible car’s rating, be sure only BMW service stole the star.

For the rest, living with M5 was an absolute dream – miss it I most certainly already am, but as they say, all good things come to an end. This one really was very good.

Long-term logbook: BMW M5
Test commenced	December 2005
Price new	R850 000
Price Now	R953 500
Options	Sunroof, active heated seats, PDC, Bluetooth
Odometer on arrival	58km
Odometer now	19 600km
We like	Awe-inspiring performance, spec, impeccable image & chameleon character.
We don't	some BMW tech & style issues, fuel range, no spare tyre, iDrive
Summary	The ultimate family supercar. Brilliant
Fuel Capacity	70 litres
Average fuel use	20.1l/100km
CiA Rating	9
Range	n/a