Sold: An M5 Story (long) (archive)

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In the summer of '96, I drove a 540 with a friend and was just blown away-- What a blast. The immediacy and sheer volume of torque just astonished me. And in such an elegant and refined package! Well, I almost did get a 540 that summer, but believe it or not, the new (at the time) Z3 won out. I never had had a convertible before, and needed to get that out of my system, so I ended up buying a 6 cyl Z3 instead (then known as a Z3 2.8). The Z3 was nice, but that darned 540 stuck in my imagination and wouldn't go away.

A few years later, in the fall of '99, I heard about the new M5 and, thought "Jeez, glad I waited, now I can get an even more awesome 5 series car." But I had just bought a house, and in fact, had since sold my Z3 because I was worried about the mortgage payments. So the 540/M5 fantasy had to wait again.

Well, fast forward to this summer, and all of a sudden I begin noticing that there seemed to be an awful lot of M5's around. I saw 3 or 4 around town (I live in the Bay Area) in just a week or two, and I began to think maybe the economy had depressed the market a little.

So starting last week, I spent a few hours a day (instead of working), surfing the Web, hitting this forum and others, and calling dealers. At first, I was encouraged by several posts advertising low mileage '00's and '01's (which of course quickly sold), and a few tips to try dealerships where new M5's were briefly sighted.

But after many dead ends--no M5's available, never had any M5's, did have one but wanted $6000 over list, etc. I'm sure you all know the story. Anyway, I started to think I had better just order an '02 and wait like everyone else. Then I came into work on Friday and checked this board, and immediately saw the post "2001 M5 available now in So. Calif." So I called the sales guy right away, who turned out to be the sales manager, Brad Williams, at the BMW dealership in Palm Springs, about 500 miles away.

Brad said he just got the car in, and it was being detailed. It had 14 miles on it, Carbon Black, M Audio, fold down seat, PDC. And best of all, it was still available and at list price. Apparently, the dealership owner had ordered both a Z8 and an M5, and decided to keep only the Z8. Brad told me someone on one of the boards (this one?) had offered him $200,000 but the owner turned it down!

So now what do I do?? Omigod that's only 500 miles from here I could fly there and drive it home tomorrow! I called Brad a few times during the day to see if the car was still there (several interested parties, but yes, still available).

Should I or shouldn't I? Boy that's a lot of money!! I already have 2 cars. But it's an M5! What do I do??? I waited til the end of the day, still undecided. I went to meetings, obsessively surfed the Web for M5 trivia, scranbled around and submitted a credit app just in case, and checked the airlines--yup, there was a flight that night at 8:30.

Finally, at 6 pm I decided to go. What the hell. I called a buddy, talked him into flying down with me so I'd have some company on the 9 hour drive back, and got another friend to take us to the airport with 1/2 hour to spare.

Crashed at an airport hotel, and Brad picked us up in the morning for the short drive to the dealership. (By the way, Brad was straight up throughout--list price, didn't try to sell me permaplate, or warranties, or anything. If you want to work with a reputable and fair dealer, he's a good guy.)

And there was that damned beautiful car, sitting in the detail area looking like a million bucks. Happy ending: 45 minutes later, we were heading north, trying like hell to keep the tach under 4500-5500.

So we're almost at the end of the story, but there's one more thing. About 5 miles from my house, after a 9 hour drive, I look in the mirror and there's a Z8 coming up fast on the right! I fumble with the shifter, still not used to it yet, find fifth, which is not nearly low enough, start to accelerate just as he inches by me. But he barely gets 1/2 a length ahead when I finally muster a little dexterity, slam it into 3rd (whoops, supposed to keep the revs low, but I don't think they hit more than 6K, briefly) and just blew by the guy.

I don't suppose he was trying too hard, or he could have hosed me, but it was a great way to end the trip. What a car.

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