Re: One of the last E28 M5s. (archive)

More late comments, this time from the UK - your information is very detailed and interesting on E28 M5 production numbers. I was curious to see the total of 177 UK cars. The figure most often quoted in the UK motor magazines is 187 but I have no idea where this number comes from. I have also seen "177" quoted in UK magazines. I have in my posession a letter from BMW (GB) which states there were 154 cars delivered to GB....which I believe to be incorrect. My own car (WBSDC920101679113)seems to have been built late '86 or very early in 1987(the pre-delivery inspection was completed at the Motorsport factory on 28 January 1987)and this is corroborated by the late '86 date stamps on some components such as the seat belts. My car was new to the Isle of Man but is to GB specification. Technically it would not count as a GB-delivered car (it was "imported" into GB in 1993) so this is a possible source of variation in figures. I can't imagine 10 M5's being supplied to the IoM but if some cars were also delivered to the Republic of Ireland that might conceivably account for another 9 in the RHD VIN series that would not be counted as GB/UK. Hope this makes some sense! Are you able to advise on the VIN series for the South African cars please?

Thanks....

Sorry to join the discussion so late. Thanks heaps for providing this info! I have a U.S. E28 M5 and just took a look at my VIN and production date: WBSDC...5282, 11/87. Although my VIN is "earlier" than Tim's, my production date is later. How does this fit in with the info you were giving earlier? These are just such cool cars to own! Of course, I'd like to know if my M5 was one of the last 100 or so to be produced. Thanks again for taking the time to reply.

Regards,

Tim,

In an effort to lean more about where your E28 M5 lies in the total production for United States and Canadian specification M5s it is confirmed as being the 1366th E28 M5 built for the Canadian and United States market. A total of 1370 E28 M5s were produced for the Canadian and United states market. 134 E28 M5 were destined for the Canadian market and 1236 were headed for the United States market. The earlier post mentions the final build dates as 6/88, while this final production date has been referenced by many notable sources, no North American E28 M5s were build during this time as production ended in 10/87.

Cheers,

The Last M5s were built in June 1988 (6/88) and ended with vin WBSDC9302J2875370. I have a lot of experience with production and Vehicle Identification Number sequencing, so while it is possible that the car in question may be a late production E28 M5, it is very difficult to extrapolate the Vehicle Identification Numbers to suggest where any given M5 may lie in the production. It has been suggested that you can determine the production number of a particular car by the information that was in my previous post, however I'm not so sure of that, as it does not always workout perfectly. In this particular case, your M5 indeed works out to be among the final four cars produced if you determine that from the Vehicle Identification Number. According to your above post your 10/87 build date does not correspond to the concluding production date of June 1988 (6/88) for North American E28 M5s. In this particular case it does not work out perfectly and confirms my suspicion for determining where an M5 lies in total production. To clarify, you often hear the total production number of North American specification M5s being 1370. This number includes the 134 M5s that were headed to Canada, which also follow the same Vehicle Identification Sequencing. Minus the 134 Canadian Specification cars we can assume that there were 1236 United States examples, and according to the production information this works perfectly as the first M5s began in 11/86 with VIN WBSDC9302J2791000 and ended with WBSDC9302J2792000, which accounts for 1000 cars. When the sequencing changed to WBSDC9302J2875000 in 10/87 it went to WBSDC9302J2875370 which accounts for and additional 370 units, bringing us to 1370. I will continue to research this for you and hope to provide you a definitive answer in the next few hours.

Follow Ups:

CORRECTION On My M5 - - It is a 11/87 Build Tim In PA 12:11 7/16/2001 (0)
UK M5 Imports and South Africa Production Lamar Hawkins 12:43 7/14/2001 (0)
Re: One of the last E28 M5s. rcbmw 18:43 7/13/2001 (0)

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