BMW M5 Competition 2018 Review

Super sedan family

When has it been a better time to be a buyer of sophisticated European muscle cars? Not only do you have a choice of the new BMW M5 super sedan and its perennial arm-wrestling foes, the Mercedes-AMG E 63 and the Audi RS 6 and RS 7, either.

It’s the way performance car-makers are finding niches and creating mini ranges, like mainstream brands have always done.

For the M division it means the new F90 BMW M5 sedan, which arrived Down Under in April, has just become a mini range, topped by the BMW M5 Competition -- and it’s a glorious, bend-belittling odyssey.

In Europe, the new BMW M5 Competition is officially the mid-level version of the latest BMW M5 family, although it will replace the $199,900 BMW M5 Launch Edition in Australia when it arrives here in October or November this year (they’re already on the boat).

There is even talk of an eventual M5 CS, which might be a giggle...

For now, though, the BMW M5 Competition will do a fine job of bringing the heat, with a big 460kW of power and 750Nm out of its belligerent 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8.

But the Competition isn’t really about how much extra power it generates. It’s about how much more speed it retains mid-corner and how it uses the power getting back out again.

It’s only another 19kW of power over the stock BMW M5 sedan, the torque figure is exactly the same and the sprint to 100km/h only drops by 0.1 seconds, to 3.3 of them. So each kiloWatt extra costs about $1526.

BMW M claims the sprint to 200km/h is more indicative of fast-car performance these days, but even then its 10.8-second figure is only 0.3sec faster than the standard BMW M5, which likewise costs almost $10K less than the regular AMG E 63.

That’s why nobody will buy the BMW M5 Competition for its straight-line acceleration, and that’s not the reason M thinks it’s special.

It’s largely special because of the extra work M has done underneath the car, especially up front, which makes it even better than the already-brilliant new M5.

There are new engine mounts, the body rides 7mm lower, the front-end’s camber angle grows to about 1.3 degrees, the springs are stiffer and the active dampers have been tweaked, too.

The back-end has, critically, different toe links and anti-roll bars, plus its suspension subframe is now attached to the chassis with ball-joints instead of rubber mounts.

If they wanted to make it crystal clear what the BMW M5 Competition was all about, they’d have called it an M5 Handling Package. But they didn’t.

We wrung its neck at the Ascari Race Resort in Spain, then attacked it on some desperately challenging mountain roads and finally cruised it down some highways, about four hour’s worth all told.

And there wasn’t anything the BMW M5 Competition didn’t excel at. It even does modesty, at a pinch.

Thorough thrash

The positive impression begins when you just look at it, standing in the sun. There are blackened kidney grilles and the glossy carbon accents on the boot spoiler, the mirrors and the M5 badges on the front quarter panels, plus its own set of forged 20-inch alloys wrapped in not-cheap 275/35 ZR 20 and 285/35 ZR20 Pirelli P Zeros.

Just like the exterior, the interior design doesn’t leap out and scream that you’ve spent an extra $30K, with M colours stitched into the black seatbelts, its own floormats and a new instrument cluster graphic (but only when you start it up).

That’s probably appropriate, because flashier people might prefer the more easily demonstrated option of more straight-line speed, while cornering is a more subtle art.

And it’s an art the BMW M5 Competition has come close to perfecting.

Of course, that throbbing, warbling, menacing V8 confronts you first, and it’s either brutal or calm and oddly quiet, depending on the mode you want to drive in.

It’s an easy urban companion, which seems odd at first, but then you see that the enormous torque peaks at 1800rpm and it becomes clearer. It’s so strong that it doesn’t need to worry much about the noisy drama of kicking down gears to overtake or punch into a gap. It just stays in the same gear.

The BMW M5 Competition’s ride quality pays a surprisingly small price for all of its stiffening, and the body remains firm and accurate to the touch, without ever falling over into lumpy or uncomfortable territory.

We drove it on a narrow, broken mountain road and wondered if it was too firm, only to drive the same road in the M2 Competition the next day and realise that the M5 Competition was simply a creature from another world.

Where the smaller M was sliding and bucking and slipping in its progressive, giggles-per-mile way, the BMW M5 Competition was just getting on with the job of punching more spin into the speedo needle, disdainful of the horrid road beneath it.

The electro-mechanical power steering is, frankly, a bit Arcade Game in its comfort setting, but it comes alive in Sport and Sport+, delivering an accuracy and crispness and a constant flow of nuanced feedback to the driver.

It’s the first point of contact with the road, and it’s a big step forward, clearly aided by the extra stiffness and accuracy at the front of the car.

It’s even better on the track, and the best part is that you can customise the set-up so you can have the rest of the car (powertrain, suspension damping, exhaust note) in full good-manners mode and keep the steering in the oh-so-tasty Sport mode.

The easiest thing would be to separate this all out into its different bits, but it can’t be done. The BMW M5 Competition is too coherent a package for that.

It has the M2’s ability to shrink around its driver so that the 1865kg, 4.96-metre sports sedan feels like every tyre is just there, an extension of the driver’s arms and feet as they touch the road.

Grips for miles

So we bellow out of the Ascari pit lane with the M1 and M2 modes switched on via bright red buttons on the steering wheel, flicking its abilities up and down.

That mighty engine bellows and howls, all the way to the 7000rpm cut-out in manual mode, then the front-end yaws so hard into the first, downhill left-hand bend that at first I take too much corner. Cars near to two tonnes aren’t supposed to hide their weight like this.

It’s a long, long opening exit, with the BMW M5 Competition dancing on the limit of straight-and-slide, and doing it without taxing its driver. And it hauls, squatting its tail down as hard as the stiffer springs allow.

The xDrive all-wheel drive is a cracker, transforming the huge potential for both understeer and power-down tail slide into sheer, untroubled acceleration and changing risky situations into something you barely notice.

Derived from the big X models, it’s matched to a lightning-quick computer and the electronically controlled torque-vectoring M diff on the rear axle, and it eats all of the V8’s output from the slick eight-speed auto and smashes it into the road.

Like the stock BMW M5, the Competition’s all-wheel drive systems can run in the stock mode, in AWD Sport or into Pirelli-powdering rear-wheel drive. And the stability control can be switched off completely, and we all know what that’s for.

It’s a joy to toss around, either on the track or on the road. It can be either cruised around using surprisingly little fuel or driven briskly with a calm assurance or picked up and thrown at corners like it’s a fat tarmac rally car.

Whatever you choose to do with it, the BMW M5 Competition will just give you the confidence to know you are in control of every situation. It’s not that it makes you feel things are easy to do, but that they are doable nevertheless.

Still, some people are going to want more power and more straight-line speed. Those people probably don’t deserve the shameless joy the BMW M5 Competition brings to a segment full of intimidating monsters.

How much does the 2018 BMW M5 Competition cost?
Price: $229,900 (plus on-road costs)
On sale: October/November
Engine: 4.4-litre twin-turbo petrol V8
Output: 460kW/750Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic, AWD
Fuel: 10.7L/100km (NEDC)
CO2: 243g/km (NEDC)
Safety rating: TBC