Germans are notorious for making excellent sport sedans. And there’s no better poster child for the Ultimate Driving Machine than the infamous BMW M5. Of course, there’s no shortage of good competition these days. One competitor, the Audi RS7, is a rivalry decades in the making. Another, more recent contender, however, may be a better challenger to the throne: the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing. With old school charms like rear-wheel drive and an available manual transmission — two things once considered critical to any good sport sedan — Car and Driver reckoned it would be the perfect candidate to crash the Audi and BMW party. They line up the BMW M5 against the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing and Audi RS7 — but does the big Bimmer hybrid stand a chance?
Weighty Issues
As Car and Driver astutely remarks, the M5 has a bit of a disadvantage right from the get-go: weight. By now it’s common knowledge the M5 weighs a lot, roughly 5251 pounds (2381 kg) the last time it stepped onto the scales at C&D. By comparison, the Audi RS7 clocks in at 4830 pounds (2190 kg) and the CT5-V is the lightest of the bunch, at just 4127 pounds (1871 kg). When it comes to power, though, the M5 has the others beat. The Audi uses a 621-horsepower twin-turbo V8, which also develops 627 pound-feet of torque. The CT5-V’s power plant is a supercharged 6.2-liter V8 making 668 horsepower and 659 pound-feet of torque. Finally, the M5’s hybrid and twin-turbocharged powertrain makes 717 horsepower and 738 pound-feet; remember, the V isn’t all-wheel drive, unlike the Germans. Despite the M5’s potency, it got stuck mid-pack in the testing, falling just a second behind the RS7’s 2.9-second dash from zero to 60 mph.
It’s Not All About Speed
While an almost entirely subjective experience, how a car makes you feel — especially in this arena — is nearly as important as how quick it is. In this day and age, some would even argue it’s more important. Critically, the Cadillac tested here wasn’t a manual — so all three relied on automatic gearboxes for their shift work. Car and Driver praised the Blackwing for its new suspension changes, while claiming the M5 felt a little bit closer to the “M7 that BMW never built.” More glowing, perhaps is their quote illustrating just how fast the M5 really is: “it was frighteningly easy to get the M5 up to velocities that only aircraft could pace.”
The conclusion? You should really read the article, but the experts over in Ann Arbor decided that the M5 simply wasn’t small or light enough to be crowned king. The M5, they feel, excels when speeds approached triple digits — a sentiment echoed with many modern BMW M products — but didn’t delight as much around town. What do you think?
Source: Car and Driver
