BMW disappoint me. Sure they build fabulous performance cars like the BMW 1-Series M Coupe, the M3, the M5, and the to-be-built 552bhp BMW M6. But that’s about it really. No gull-winged, bi-spoilered, extra wide arched, super-low supercars. This irks me as BMW are now, in my opinion, either too profit-oriented, politically correct, socially conscious or environmentally friendly for their own good.

In a recent interview, BMW North America’s Product Manager stated that the German brand doesn’t feel the need to make a supercar and that they like to build practical cars that are drivers’ cars and executive cars that one can use everyday. This thought is further cemented by the statement made by Albert Biermann, BMW M’s development chief who told Autocar last year that BMW and M were struggling to find a business case for a supercar. “We have the skills and we’d love to do it,” he said, “We’ve discussed it several times but we’ve never been able to make the business case. Everything we do has to make money.”

This profit-oriented fact is a royal pain in my butt. This coming from a company that promotes “the joy of driving” in every one of its products. It could be that their engineers are the ultimate in German clinical efficiency and do not actually have a joyous bone in their body. Hence why they seem to love the single-minded purpose-built Porsche 911 GT3s.

A supercar burns more hydro-carbons that a regular car. Fact. It goes fast for the sake of going fast. It cannot usually carry more than 2 people and it cannot cure world hunger, predict earthquakes, cure AIDS or even eradicate poverty. The current crop of BMW M cars may have supercar performance, but are they super cars or supercars? Yes, there is a difference.

No supercar in my opinion is like a cap without its feather, a soccer team without a proper striker, a martini without an olive, Sir Winston Churchill without his cigar or Jerry Maguire without that Renee Zellweger’s character to complete him. BMW doesn’t have its own pièce de résistance in its line-up of cars. A supercar isn’t about being socially irresponsible. It is about having icing on the cake. Something that a catalogue needs to tell wealthy people that they’ve something outrageous that they can buy.

A supercar is also a way for a company, or their engineers, to push themselves or to push back the boundaries of engineering. Some supercar manufacturers like Ferrari go racing to bring about new technology faster to its road going cars and this shows in cars like the Ferrari 458 Italia. There are others like the Volkswagen Group whose Chairman decides to prove a point and tasked its engineers to come out with the fastest road legal production car in the Solar System – the Bugatti Veyron. And almost everyone including the techno geeks over at Popular Mechanics, Stuff and even Time magazine took notice. Pinnacles of engineering rarely fade away even decades after they’re out of production. BMW is without an engineering peak to be proud of.

Now when we compare BMW to its homegrown rivals Audi and Mercedes Benz, both have totally wonderful supercars to cap off their range of vehicles – Audi with its R8 and Mercedes Benz with the AMG SLS. What do BMW M5 or M6 owners graduate to when they have more income to dispose of? A Rolls Royce Phantom? The Rolls may be a good choice, but a leviathan still isn’t a performance supercar. It isn’t an R8 or a Mercedes Benz AMG SLS like the ones pictured herein. So where does that leave BMW?

If one were to take Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen Group as ‘local’ examples, the reason these companies allow flagships is that the majority shares in these companies are ultimately owned by investment groups, companies and various institutions. These groups understand the need to be diversified (as investment groups are usually varied in their investments by nature) and the need to have a ‘halo’ car in their companies’ lineup. Take a look at the Audi R8 and the Mercedes Benz AMG SLS again, both are ridiculously extrovert in nature and these are cars that BMW do not have an answer to in its current lineup.

The last supercar BMW ever made was the BMW M1. This car was built from 1978 to 1981 and it was the only mid-engined car ever built by BMW. Only 456 units were ever built. It was powered by BMW’s M88 3.5-litre straight-6 engine that was also used in the BMW M635CSi and the E28 BMW M5. Now if sharing a powerplant was feasible in those days wouldn’t it be feasible for BMW to save some cost and use the F10 M5′s twin turbocharged engine?

So why is this ulitmate quest for profit actually stopping BMW from creating the Ultimate Driver’s Machine, a.k.a the BMW Supercar? It lies in the fact that BMW is basically controlled by one slightly reclusive family – the Quandts. This would mean that the company’s future lie in the hands of one family unlike Merccedes Benz or even VW Group.

I suppose the Quandts’ goal for BMW is firstly as their cash cow and secondly, their cash cow must be environmentally friendly and socially responsible (which is why BMWs must multi-task). Quite a lot of responsibility for a cow. In 2010, both Mercedes Benz (Daimler AG) and the Volkswagen group made over €7billion while BMW made only €5billion. And it can be assumed that both Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen has been making these levels of profit year after year compared to BMW. If you then compare the total asset worth of both Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen against BMW, you would see that they both tower over BMW by about €30billion and €90billion respectively. So you can then realise why the engineers and designers at Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen can go nuts and spend a few hundred million Euros more than BMW when it comes to developing cars.

I believe that it’s the need for better corporate profit margins that is the cause for loss in the car enthusiast community. And that loss is a proper supercar made by BMW.

Whilst the V10 has been binned due to poor fuel consumption and ever tightening emissions regulations, the 2012 M5 does have an increase in power since the last variant. Namely 560bhp from 6-7,000 rpm thanks to a twin-turbo V8. But it’s not just the power that has been improved; BMW’s engineers claim that this is the best handling M5 ever created.

It’s not hard to see why in the flesh. The 2012 M5 has a more aggressive stance than the previous generation which looked like a slight improvement over the run-of-the-mill 5 series. Coming to stores near you next year, this M5 will be instantly recognisable thanks to the silver sliver cut-out on the side, more grooves and lines on the hood, and a mean front splitter.

Quad exhausts around the back are unchanged but they look blingier and more at home and as such, I have to say this car is beautifully designed and in electric blue, is probably the colour I would get one in too. The V8 is a unit that loves to rev and torque delivery of a nice 502lb-ft is available from 1,500rpm without any turbo lag. And what of efficiency? BMW says that fuel consumption is down 30% thanks to EfficientDynamics they always hark on about including auto stop/start and brake energy regeneration.

Also on show in BMW’s Hall 11 at Frankfurt was the newly styled 1 Series. The pictures we captured here show the 1 with added M Sport Package set to be launched in Spring 2012.

As is usual with all M Sport vehicles, we can expect to see interior and exterior styling updates when this is available to dealers with the most obvious changes being to the front splitter, larger alloy wheels and more sculpted side sills. Inside there is a whole host of leather upholstery adding to the luxurious feel of this market entrant model. Engines remain the same and buyers can choose from 2 petrol and 2 diesel units.

The unquestioned champ in for mid-size performance is no doubt BMW’s M5 (some even call it the original four-door supercar). Toward the end of a car’s cycle it is inevitable for the model to get out performed by newer next-generation competitors.

This has happened with Cadillac and its CTS-V, as well as the Porsche Panamera. The Cadillac CTS-V held a record for fastest four-door car at the famed Nurburgring circuit, only to be eclipsed by the Panamera. The Porsche’s time currently checks in at a scant 7 minutes, 56 seconds.

Now, website FastestLaps.com is reporting a new record for a four-door sedan at the track – 7 minutes, 55 seconds. That is just one second faster, something that can chalked up to driver differences or weather variances.

In addition, the time is unofficial – with the run undertaken by a BMW test driver. This is likely BMW doing unofficial runs to establish a baseline from which it can make a run at the record. We don’t doubt BMW has its sights set on a new record on the track, but we’ll have to wait to hear more official information to know for sure.

If you can ignore the colors, then the brass tacks of the ride are fairly notable. Lumma says that the plant under the hood is the most powerful engine ever in a road-legal BMW. The factory 5.0-liter V10 unit, which is nothing to sneeze at, cranks out 507HP and 520Nm o’torque, and Lumma saw fit to attach a pair of superchargers, bolt on a new sport exhaust system and do a bunch of other mods.

So what used to be a meager 507 and 520 is now a very impressive 730HP and a peak torque output of 700Nm. Said power und grunt is enough to motivate the sled from naught to 100 km/h in 4.2 seconds. If you can wait for 100 seconds to tick by, you’ll be doing 200 km/h, 29.5 seconds will bring you 300km/h and it will top out at 367.4 km/h.

There’s the other “normal” tuner tricks in evidence. An uprated M5 brake system with 6-piston calipers, 405mm drilled disks in the front, 4-piston calipers with 380mm drilled discs hanging out the back. An adjustable sport suspension allows the car to be lowered by 45mm, handy for speed bumps.

The panda inspired two-tone wide- body kit gets you a new hood, trunk lid with an integrated spoiler, mirror caps, entrance strips, door handles and fenders. They’re all made of carbon fiber, natch, and Lumma alleges they are designed to improve the car’s aerodynamics at high speeds. Sure, big wheels and meats: 21-inch lightweight forged alloys and 255/30s up front and 295/25s at the back.

We won’t go into the color & concept end of things here. A picture being worth a thousand words and all.

Source: CarScoop

The BMW M5 is an iconic car in the industry, and it has been heralded as the performance benchmark in the luxury segment for years.

That bar was only increased for the latest generation car, which uses a 5.0L V-10 making 507 horsepower. BMW has set out to top it though with this special edition car. The vehicle isn’t officially referred to as a CSL, but BMW’s M division head of development Albert Biermann said it was the “M5 CSL we never built,” so that’s the name that has stuck.

For increased performance, the M5 CSL opts for a sure way of achieving that: increased power and lower weight. Biermann said that BMW’s modifications, which take the engine to 5.5 liters, have increased power to 580 horsepower and 400 pound-feet. of torque.

Other changes include include the seven-speed dual-clutch Getrag transmission from the M3, a carbon fiber roof, carbon fiber seats and a removed rear seat (!).

The changes help the car shed 11o pounds in weight which, along with the power increases, help the car lap the Nurburgring around 20 seconds faster than the current car. Interested? It is just a one-off unfortunately. Who knows though, maybe BMW will make a similar special edition M5 in the future.

Apparently not. A new report out by Edmunds’ Inside Line says that the M5 could be shedding that engine for a V-8 powerplant.

The report flies in the face of a previous one we heard about the M5 in June. That one said that the M5 would be getting more outrageous than ever, utilizing not just the same naturally-aspirated 5.0-liter V-10 in the current car, but a twin-turbocharged one. Crazy? Oh yes.

That never seemed like the likeliest course of action, but it was always good to dream right? A turbocharged V-8 in the new M5 should ensure that power doesn’t suffer. BMW executives haven’t confirmed which V-8 will find it’s way into the M5′s engine bay, but the likeliest engine will be the 4.4-liter unit in the X5M and X6M. Goodbye M5 V-10, we hardly knew ye!

The next-generation M5 promises to do just that, looking a whole lot better too. The current 5-Series has gotten a lot of criticism for it’s Chris Bangle-designed styling. Oddly enough, both it and the 7-Series (which got the criticism even worse, rightly so) continued to sell better then ever though.

This new report speculates a lot about the new BMW M5, saying it could get a twin-turbocharged V-10 this time around, instead of the naturally-aspirated V10 in the current car. Other reports in the past have said that BMW would utilize a twin-turbocharged V8 (like the one in the X5 M and X6 M).

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