Jeremy Clarkson reviews the M5 (hilarious)
06-12-05 | 11:03 PM
#1
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Jeremy Clarkson reviews the M5 (hilarious)
http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/art...649122,00.html
One thing that struck me is people have stated you can't take off the VDIM on the GS (and probably on all future Lexus) but on the M5, well there are tons of electronics that you can't turn off that drove Clarkson mad.
BMW M5
By Jeremy Clarkson of The Sunday Times
For a rat up the trousers, press M
I worked today with a young naked girl whom we shall call Teri. She wasn’t actually naked but such was the smallness of her clothing you could tell she wanted to be.
Teri wasn’t a model. She was absolutely adamant about that. “I’m not a model,” she said. “I’m a television presenter.” And proceeded to reel off a list of her shows, all of which are beamed only into homes with satellite dishes the size of New Mexico.
Teri was one of the most annoying people I’ve ever met because at no point in the day did she do or say anything even remotely surprising. From the moment you saw her hair, you could tell where she lived, what her friends looked like and that she almost certainly has the News of the World’s newsdesk on speed dial.
*
Click here to find out more!
It’s the same deal with those thin-lipped angry-looking women you see in Caffe Nero reading The Guardian. You know everything about them before even saying hello. And then there was the berk in the Boxster that cruised past me in Docklands last week. I saw the parting in his hair and knew he’d have a plasma television, an appointment to play squash that night with someone called Dom, and no carpets.
Don’t these people realise that it’s much more fun to pick and mix opinions rather than buying a sort of compilation album. It’s why I’m so supportive of the European Union and have donkeys. Because these are the last things anyone would expect.
And it’s also why I have such a downer on BMWs. Sure they’re great cars but they’re like magnolia paint. It’s warm and practical and goes with anything but what it says most of all is I Have No Imagination.
The M5, however, has always been a little bit different. The best was the first. Launched in the late 1980s it looked exactly like my dad’s dreary 525e, but thanks to its 286bhp straight-six engine it went with a ferocity and a panache that had no place in a four-door saloon.
It was, quite simply, the best Q car ever made (it looks ordinary but goes like a rat up your trousers).
That said, the M5s that followed were fairly stupendous as well. Quiet, unassuming cars for people who wanted to get home very quickly without making a song and dance about it. And here’s the clincher. These cars lost money like gin palaces, halving in value overnight and then halving again before breakfast was over.
The first M5, launched in the late 1980s was, quite simply, the best Q car ever made (it looks ordinary but goes like a rat up your trousers)
Jeremy Clarkson
So whenever I see someone in an M5 I’m overcome with a wave of respect, because here is someone who has paid a fortune to hide his light under a bushel. I like that, and as a result I was desperately looking forward to my first go in the new model.
It has a 5 litre V10 engine that churns out 400bhp. It’ll do 0-60 in 4sec and could, if it didn’t have an electronic Bill Oddie under the bonnet, hit 204mph. And yet, apart from a few fancy air ducts on the front it looks pretty much identical to your doctor’s normal 5-series. Sounds like quite a recipe.
Unfortunately, however, the recipe has been spoilt somewhat by someone who thinks pure engineering can be improved with a blizzard of technobabble.
So before setting off for a 50-mile journey home on a lovely summer’s evening, I had to choose from 11 different settings on the seven-speed flappy paddle gearbox. Then I had to decide how ferocious I wanted the gearshifts to be, very fierce, quite fierce, moderately fierce, boring or very boring. And then I had to choose from three settings on the electronic differential.
And then, since I didn’t know where I was, I had to set the sat nav, which meant hitting a ****, twiddling it, moving it to the side and then twiddling it again.
It’s a good job this car has so much power because by the time you’ve set it up for the journey that lies ahead you’re already very late.
Anyway, off I toddled, cursing the BMW gearbox’s inability to cope with town traffic no matter what setting you choose. Pretty soon, however, the road opened up, Bob Seger came on the radio, and with a determined shove I put my foot down.
And pushed a **** on the steering wheel that I assumed controlled the volume. It didn’t. It changed the station, so now instead of Hollywood Nights I had some fat opera bint warbling on Radio 3. Damn. So I had to get the screen out of sat nav mode into entertainment mode and then tell it I wanted an FM station, whereupon it presented me with a million local alternatives that nobody who has £61,000 to spend on a car would ever listen to. I just want one button for Radio 2 and one for Radio 4. And that’s it.
Eventually I relocated Bob Seger but unfortunately I was approaching a roundabout and the sat nav woman had decided I was an idiot. So she told me to go straight over and then repeated herself and then repeated it again. And by the time she’d shut up Bob had been replaced with a miserable sounding girl called *****.
*
Click here to find out more!
Happily, by this stage I knew where I was so I thought, “Okay, I’ll turn the sat nav off.” Well you can’t. It doesn’t matter what button you press, she continues to give her instructions over and over again until you want to bludgeon her and her family to death with an axe. Even if you pull over and turn off the engine, she lies in a state of suspended animation, waiting to spew electronic diarrhoea all over the cockpit when you set off again.
To make matters worse, in the desperate search for the right button I’d hit something called “power”, which had ruined the ride. And then I’d made the mistake of reaching for the indicator. You can’t turn that off either. It doesn’t matter what you do with the stalk, it just goes on blinking until it’s decided you’ve made the turn.
By this stage I was properly angry and now the sat nav cow was not only giving me audible instructions but flashing them onto a head-up display on the windscreen. And the indicator was still on and I couldn’t find Radio 4. And then I hit another button on the steering wheel called “M”.
This brought up a rev counter in the head-up display and caused the seat to start attacking my back. I’m not joking. Every time I went round a corner some electronic chip decided I needed more support and firmed up the appropriate bolster.
Times Online logo
View a photo gallery of the BMW M5
Search for new or used BMW M5 online
They say a Dutch bargee can swear for two minutes without repetition or hesitation. But in the new M5 I beat that easily. Why, I wailed to myself, can there not just be one big red button in the middle of the steering wheel which turns all this crap off? Why do I have to live in some German geek’s wet dream? And then to improve my mood still further, I came up behind a Rover that was being driven by someone who was a hundred and seventy twelve. In a temper I put my foot down to get past and couldn’t believe what happened.
It seems that the M button, in addition to electrifying the seat, had told a computer deep in the bowels of the engine that I was in the mood for some fun and games. So now the V10 was no longer developing 400bhp. It was handing over a massive 507. That’s right, 507. And as a result the M5 just flew.
In the last five miles of my journey I discovered that deep beneath the layers of utter and complete electronic nonsense, and the rather ugly body, there’s one truly amazing car.
Just when I was thinking that BMW had made yet another car for yet another software consultant, it did something I really wasn’t expecting.
It became a full-on M5. And praise doesn’t come higher than that.
Vital statistics
Model BMW M5
Engine Ten cylinders, 4999cc
Power 507bhp @ 7750rpm
Torque 383 lb ft @ 6100rpm
Transmission Seven-speed manual
Fuel 19.1mpg (combined)
CO2 357g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 4.7sec
Top speed 204mph
Price £61,760
Verdict The consummate wolf in sheep’s clothing
Rating 4/5
One thing that struck me is people have stated you can't take off the VDIM on the GS (and probably on all future Lexus) but on the M5, well there are tons of electronics that you can't turn off that drove Clarkson mad.
BMW M5
By Jeremy Clarkson of The Sunday Times
For a rat up the trousers, press M
I worked today with a young naked girl whom we shall call Teri. She wasn’t actually naked but such was the smallness of her clothing you could tell she wanted to be.
Teri wasn’t a model. She was absolutely adamant about that. “I’m not a model,” she said. “I’m a television presenter.” And proceeded to reel off a list of her shows, all of which are beamed only into homes with satellite dishes the size of New Mexico.
Teri was one of the most annoying people I’ve ever met because at no point in the day did she do or say anything even remotely surprising. From the moment you saw her hair, you could tell where she lived, what her friends looked like and that she almost certainly has the News of the World’s newsdesk on speed dial.
*
Click here to find out more!
It’s the same deal with those thin-lipped angry-looking women you see in Caffe Nero reading The Guardian. You know everything about them before even saying hello. And then there was the berk in the Boxster that cruised past me in Docklands last week. I saw the parting in his hair and knew he’d have a plasma television, an appointment to play squash that night with someone called Dom, and no carpets.
Don’t these people realise that it’s much more fun to pick and mix opinions rather than buying a sort of compilation album. It’s why I’m so supportive of the European Union and have donkeys. Because these are the last things anyone would expect.
And it’s also why I have such a downer on BMWs. Sure they’re great cars but they’re like magnolia paint. It’s warm and practical and goes with anything but what it says most of all is I Have No Imagination.
The M5, however, has always been a little bit different. The best was the first. Launched in the late 1980s it looked exactly like my dad’s dreary 525e, but thanks to its 286bhp straight-six engine it went with a ferocity and a panache that had no place in a four-door saloon.
It was, quite simply, the best Q car ever made (it looks ordinary but goes like a rat up your trousers).
That said, the M5s that followed were fairly stupendous as well. Quiet, unassuming cars for people who wanted to get home very quickly without making a song and dance about it. And here’s the clincher. These cars lost money like gin palaces, halving in value overnight and then halving again before breakfast was over.
The first M5, launched in the late 1980s was, quite simply, the best Q car ever made (it looks ordinary but goes like a rat up your trousers)
Jeremy Clarkson
So whenever I see someone in an M5 I’m overcome with a wave of respect, because here is someone who has paid a fortune to hide his light under a bushel. I like that, and as a result I was desperately looking forward to my first go in the new model.
It has a 5 litre V10 engine that churns out 400bhp. It’ll do 0-60 in 4sec and could, if it didn’t have an electronic Bill Oddie under the bonnet, hit 204mph. And yet, apart from a few fancy air ducts on the front it looks pretty much identical to your doctor’s normal 5-series. Sounds like quite a recipe.
Unfortunately, however, the recipe has been spoilt somewhat by someone who thinks pure engineering can be improved with a blizzard of technobabble.
So before setting off for a 50-mile journey home on a lovely summer’s evening, I had to choose from 11 different settings on the seven-speed flappy paddle gearbox. Then I had to decide how ferocious I wanted the gearshifts to be, very fierce, quite fierce, moderately fierce, boring or very boring. And then I had to choose from three settings on the electronic differential.
And then, since I didn’t know where I was, I had to set the sat nav, which meant hitting a ****, twiddling it, moving it to the side and then twiddling it again.
It’s a good job this car has so much power because by the time you’ve set it up for the journey that lies ahead you’re already very late.
Anyway, off I toddled, cursing the BMW gearbox’s inability to cope with town traffic no matter what setting you choose. Pretty soon, however, the road opened up, Bob Seger came on the radio, and with a determined shove I put my foot down.
And pushed a **** on the steering wheel that I assumed controlled the volume. It didn’t. It changed the station, so now instead of Hollywood Nights I had some fat opera bint warbling on Radio 3. Damn. So I had to get the screen out of sat nav mode into entertainment mode and then tell it I wanted an FM station, whereupon it presented me with a million local alternatives that nobody who has £61,000 to spend on a car would ever listen to. I just want one button for Radio 2 and one for Radio 4. And that’s it.
Eventually I relocated Bob Seger but unfortunately I was approaching a roundabout and the sat nav woman had decided I was an idiot. So she told me to go straight over and then repeated herself and then repeated it again. And by the time she’d shut up Bob had been replaced with a miserable sounding girl called *****.
*
Click here to find out more!
Happily, by this stage I knew where I was so I thought, “Okay, I’ll turn the sat nav off.” Well you can’t. It doesn’t matter what button you press, she continues to give her instructions over and over again until you want to bludgeon her and her family to death with an axe. Even if you pull over and turn off the engine, she lies in a state of suspended animation, waiting to spew electronic diarrhoea all over the cockpit when you set off again.
To make matters worse, in the desperate search for the right button I’d hit something called “power”, which had ruined the ride. And then I’d made the mistake of reaching for the indicator. You can’t turn that off either. It doesn’t matter what you do with the stalk, it just goes on blinking until it’s decided you’ve made the turn.
By this stage I was properly angry and now the sat nav cow was not only giving me audible instructions but flashing them onto a head-up display on the windscreen. And the indicator was still on and I couldn’t find Radio 4. And then I hit another button on the steering wheel called “M”.
This brought up a rev counter in the head-up display and caused the seat to start attacking my back. I’m not joking. Every time I went round a corner some electronic chip decided I needed more support and firmed up the appropriate bolster.
Times Online logo
View a photo gallery of the BMW M5
Search for new or used BMW M5 online
They say a Dutch bargee can swear for two minutes without repetition or hesitation. But in the new M5 I beat that easily. Why, I wailed to myself, can there not just be one big red button in the middle of the steering wheel which turns all this crap off? Why do I have to live in some German geek’s wet dream? And then to improve my mood still further, I came up behind a Rover that was being driven by someone who was a hundred and seventy twelve. In a temper I put my foot down to get past and couldn’t believe what happened.
It seems that the M button, in addition to electrifying the seat, had told a computer deep in the bowels of the engine that I was in the mood for some fun and games. So now the V10 was no longer developing 400bhp. It was handing over a massive 507. That’s right, 507. And as a result the M5 just flew.
In the last five miles of my journey I discovered that deep beneath the layers of utter and complete electronic nonsense, and the rather ugly body, there’s one truly amazing car.
Just when I was thinking that BMW had made yet another car for yet another software consultant, it did something I really wasn’t expecting.
It became a full-on M5. And praise doesn’t come higher than that.
Vital statistics
Model BMW M5
Engine Ten cylinders, 4999cc
Power 507bhp @ 7750rpm
Torque 383 lb ft @ 6100rpm
Transmission Seven-speed manual
Fuel 19.1mpg (combined)
CO2 357g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 4.7sec
Top speed 204mph
Price £61,760
Verdict The consummate wolf in sheep’s clothing
Rating 4/5
06-12-05 | 11:33 PM
#4
Lexus Champion
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 3,057
Likes: 0
From: Washington
Yeah, it's great. He had about 2 sentences on the actual driving of the car, and we knew that it would get a great review but the whole article told otherwise. It's thing like this (and the C6 review 
that make me discount Clarkson as a good auto reviewer. Damn right he's entertaining but that's about it.
James
that make me discount Clarkson as a good auto reviewer. Damn right he's entertaining but that's about it. James
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06-13-05 | 06:36 AM
#8
Super Moderator
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 30,120
Likes: 231
From: Canada
Originally Posted by jet864
Yeah, it's great. He had about 2 sentences on the actual driving of the car, and we knew that it would get a great review but the whole article told otherwise. It's thing like this (and the C6 review that make me discount Clarkson as a good auto reviewer. Damn right he's entertaining but that's about it.
James
that make me discount Clarkson as a good auto reviewer. Damn right he's entertaining but that's about it. James
& I'd still much rather have the M6
06-13-05 | 07:33 AM
#9
Lexus Fanatic
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 91,705
Likes: 89
From: Virginia/D.C. suburbs
Originally Posted by AmethySC
& I'd still much rather have the M6
06-13-05 | 03:19 PM
#11
Lead Lap
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 425
Likes: 0
From: MN
For a auto reviewer who purposely races an EVO FQ400 in 6th gear at idle speed against an economy car and complains that the EVO suk cuz it lost doesn't have much credibility with me. He even complain that the EVO was too easy to drive fast. 4 wheel drift can be done with just a finger on the wheel.
06-13-05 | 08:35 PM
#13
Guest
Posts: n/a
Originally Posted by Celicamaro
For a auto reviewer who purposely races an EVO FQ400 in 6th gear at idle speed against an economy car and complains that the EVO suk cuz it lost doesn't have much credibility with me. He even complain that the EVO was too easy to drive fast. 4 wheel drift can be done with just a finger on the wheel.
