This isn’t an M5 E60. It may look like the top dog version of the fifth-generation 5 Series, but it wasn’t always like this. It has the mighty V10 under the hood, and yet BMW did not originally build the car this way. Indeed, it started out as a plain 5er with a 2.5-liter engine before displacement was doubled via an S85 swap.
Malaysian tuner Conti JDM Auto was the mastermind behind the project. It’s safe to say the M5 E60 lookalike with the V10 conversion took a lot of work. It was only made possible after buying a JDM-spec totaled car that was literally cut in half. The technicians yanked out anything that was worth saving from the destroyed car. In addition, the battery was mounted in the center where the spare tire would be, just like in the genuine M5 E60.
Not A Real M5 E60, But Impressively Close To The Real Deal
The project car was fully resprayed and received a body kit to mimic the real thing. It also has the subtle trunk lid spoiler and quad exhaust setup to fool the untrained eye. On the same note, the M-branded tachometer goes all the way up to 9,000 rpm while the speedometer shows 330 km/h. As impressive as the attention to detail is, the real gem is undoubtedly the 5.0-liter engine.
The only V10 ever developed by BMW, the S85B50 pushed out 500 horsepower and 520 Newton-meters (384 pound-feet) of torque. It had an 8,250 rpm redline and pushed out 100 hp per liter, an impressive feat for a naturally aspirated engine. This E60 build may not be a real M5, but it’s pretty close to the real deal. It goes without saying a lot of rewiring was necessary to make everything work in harmony, without any warning lights popping out on the dash.
It’s a clean build through and through, up to the point someone who is not into BMWs would be tempted to say it’s the real deal.
Note: Turn on the English subtitles by using YouTube’s auto-translate function.
Source: Galeri Kereta / YouTube
