The BMW Welt is closed for five weeks for renovations, but there’s still plenty of action inside. The talented Elias Hountondji from the Red Bull Driftbrothers had the opportunity to go sideways with the G90 at the exhibition center in Munich. As you can tell, it’s not a standard version of the seventh-generation super sedan. The luxury bruiser is decked out with M Performance Parts and has a Speed Yellow paint job.
I sense what some of you are going to say – it takes a lot of talent to drift such a heavy car in a tight space. Fair point, considering the new M5 tips the scales at 5,390 pounds in US specification. The European model weighs 2,435 kilograms. The G99 wagon is even chunkier. However, the Bavarian rocket makes it easy for the driver to wag the car’s tail. There’s still a dedicated rear-wheel-drive mode, even after adding the intricate plug-in hybrid system.
At the touch of the screen, the car can send the full 717 horsepower exclusively to the rear axle. M5 G90 Product Manager Daniela Schmid told BMWBLOG a few months ago that the twin-turbo 4.4-liter V8 engine and the electric motor can send everything to the back wheels. The previous-generation M5 (F90) was the first M car with a selectable 2WD mode. However, even in its ultimate M5 CS guise, the sports sedan had nearly 100 fewer ponies than the new model.
Although the new M5 shares its drivetrain with the XM, the controversial electrified SUV is always in all-wheel-drive mode. That’s hardly a surprise since the other M SUVs are also xDrive-only. In Label guise, the flagship XM has a 20-hp advantage over the M5. However, BMW is likely to close the gap or even match the XM Label with hotter iterations of the sedan/wagon duo. An M5 CS could arrive later in the life cycle.
Source: BMW M / YouTube
