27 Jul 2010

I don't want an M5 anymore

Posted by:  Harvey Xiao

2003_m5_interior

That's the picture I had on my bathroom wall. My dad decided that the space in my bedroom should be occupied by a picture of a big tiger in the forest instead of by a picture of a car's dashboard. That's another story.

This arrangement actually worked well for me. Every time I brushed my teeth, or nature called, I would get to stare at the dashboard of the last gen M5. I got to know it very well, and I loved it. It had all the creature comforts of a modern luxury car - high quality materials, leather seats, navigation system, climate control etc. Yet, there was nothing to distract the driver from the driving experience. I loved the thick 3-spoke wheel, the 6-speed shifter, and the beautiful BMW gauges. I used to sit on my throne and daydream about having an M5 as my daily driver. Even picked out a color...

Anyway.

The M5 changed. BMW must have been inspired by Subaru or something - the new M5 could be called the M5 STI. Away went the manual gearbox, and in came the sequential shifter with launch control, a thousand settings, and 7 gears. iDrive came along too. It all makes sense, I guess. The time and concentration you save by not having to shift your own gears can be used toward learning to get tune to your favorite radio station while configuring your phone book and setting the climate control to 71 degrees with an enormous button that turns, twists, and clicks. Good luck with that, by the way.

I don't want an M5 anymore. 

These days, I'd really rather own a 535i. But I hear the steering on the new ones suck. I guess my new dream car is the Mercedes-Benz E350. Somehow, that's just depressing.