lawguy

On the track, maybe. In the real world, its far less than "pretty big". I saw road test in the car mags that the 550i ran a 4.8 time in the 0-60. Depending on your source, that's .3 to .5 seconds slower, which is about the blink of an eye from 0-60.

I'm not suggesting they're equal, or even comparable. No question the M5 is faster and handles better.

But, the 550i is no slouch, and damn near the car the M5 is - no apologies neccessary here.

sdg1871

I love my 550 but having been up against a stock M5 repeatedly in our meets in side by side accleration runs, the difference between the two is huge. From 0 to about 30, the stock 550 is actually equal to for faster than the E60 M5. This is due to the fact that the M5 does not have much low end torque (its biggest weak point -- and one that will be fixed in the F10 M5) and the 550's torque is available at much lower rpms (torque is 360 lbs-ft for 550 and 384 for M5).

But once the M5's V10 is revving and in the heart of its powerband and speeds rise about 30, the M5 passes my 550 like it was standing still and absolutely runs away from it. When the road is straight and unrestricted, a 550 is not even close to a M5 in terms of speed and acceleration.

There no doubt that the 550i with sport package is the next best thing to a M5 in an E60 and is very comparable to the M5 in terms of slow speed stoplight to stoplight driving. But there is no comparison at speed.

It is true that the fastest 0-60 time ever clocked for a 550 by a major car mag (4.8 seconds) is close to the slowest 0-60 M5 times records by car mags (about 4.5). But most mags pegged the 550 from 0-60 in the low five seconds and most mags pegged the M5 in the low four seconds. If the test is from 0 to 100 or 0 to 150, there is a massive difference between the two.

No the 550 is no slouch. It's a excellent performance sedan. But the M5 is in a totally different performance class IMHO.

E92-Lighting

very very nice shots