CarThrottle Asks: What's The Greatest Sports Sedan?

It seems faintly believable, but it used to be that if you wanted a fast car, it had two doors. Sedans and wagons were for people with families and no souls, and if you cared about 0-60 times and quarter-mile trap speeds, you had to buy a Corvette, or a Mustang, or a something European and low to the ground and turbocharged.  Of course, these days fast comes in all shapes and sizes: Subaru Forester Turbo, anyone?

The sports sedan was the original merging of practicality and rapidity, though.  And today, the market is overstuffed with choice.  Want a turbocharged, four-wheel-drive, rally-bred road rocket?  Well, do you want an Evo X or a WRX STI?  Want a rumbling hand-built AMG V8 under the hood?  Well, sir, would you like that in a C, E, S, or CLS-class Mercedes Benz?  How about a high-winding F1-shrieking V10?  Would sir like to take a look at the M5?

My question then, is this: what's the greatest?  There have been tons along the way, but for me there's only one answer, and that's the original: the 1988 BMW (E28) M5.  It was BMW M's first product after the partially-Italian M1 mid-engined supercar, and it was a bit of a world-shaker.  The M5 was based on the 535i, but used many bespoke components.  The engine was the 3.5L M88/3 straight six shared with the M1, which used dual overhead cams on four-valve heads with 6 individual throttle bodies to spit out 282bhp on a 10.5:1 compression ratio.  US cars used the less powerful S38/B35 motor, which was the same but equipped with a catalyst and 9.8:1 compression pistons.  Power was still an impressive 252bhp, which was a ton for the time: when the M5 hit the 'states in 1986, the 302ci Mustang GT with the new multi-port EFI setup, hot cam, and high-swirl heads was only making 200bhp out of it's 4.9L.

Regardless of market-specific specs, the E28 M5 was a storming performer:  non-cat M88/3 M5's could do 0-100km/h in 6.2 seconds and topped out at 153mph, with catalyzed S38 M5's doing 0-60 in 6.5 seconds and hitting a top end of 148mph, which made them some of the fastest cars on the road back in '86.  Being an E28 (read: back before the 5-series got all huge and ponderous), it was also nimble and balanced and a hoot to drive, with a kerb weight of around 3,200 lbs.  Of course, the bigger Bosch-ABS-equipped brakes didn't hurt, and neither did the bespoke M suspension: Bilstein (later Boge) shocks, thicker sway bars, tweaked geometry and stronger bushes, the whole nine.

It was the car that basically created the super-sedan segment.  Cars like the (twice as powerful!) Cadillac CTS-V have the original M5 to thank for their very existance.  Of course, subsequent M5's grew in power and sophistication (I could write a book about how awesome the E34-chassis M5's are!) but none ever really captured the raw charm of those E28's to me.

What's your favorite all-time sports sedan?  (Brian, we know: Galant VR-4.  We know.)  Drop us a line below!