BMW M5 E39 Pre-Production Testing Video
The video below is pretty lengthy, by today’s short-attention span standards, but it does shed a light on the E39’s development. If you’re a real enthusiast, you’ll watch the whole deal, but if you’re not interested in seeing still shots of the car placed on various German lawns, the real excitement happens later on.
Compared to the softness of how the video starts, the torture tests, which begin around the 19-minute mark, are really quite intensive and interesting at the same time. The suspension rig is something used pretty commonly for NVH testing, but there’s a front axle load test machine that simulates everything you’d find an E39 M5 driver putting their car through.
There’s also quite a bit of Nurburgring driving at the end, but I don’t think it was for any lap records. Given all the harsh testing already seen in the video, I think the aim was to drive it like someone who didn’t know how to correctly go fast. I was almost shocked at what looked like loads of under-steer at first, but then realized with this kind of testing, BMW can see how the car reacts when you enter a corner a little too ambitiously.
Chime in with your thoughts on the forum. >>
Via [Auto Evolution]
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