What's the news?
BMW has revealed the new M5 Competition. Unlike the M Competition package offered for the previous M5, the M5 Competition is presented as a standalone model. It gains a useful increase in power, tweaked looks, new equipment inside and out and some interesting chassis upgrades.
Exterior
As standard, the M5 Competition features a new design of 20-inch forged alloy wheel in a bi-colour finish. Up front are 275/35 tyres, while the back wheels get wider 285/35 items. Other tweaks to the design are relatively subtle, such as body colour for the entire exterior door handles. Black is used extensively to mark out other areas, including the door mirrors, M gills in the front wings, kidney grille, rear bumper, boot spoiler and in the new M5 boot badge, which gets extra 'Competition' lettering underneath.
Interior
Inside, the M5 Competition features black seat belts with the M stripes woven into them, bespoke floor mats and 'M Competition' in the instruments on start-up. Elsewhere, the upholstery is full Merino Aragon leather and the trim material is called 'aluminium carbon structure dark chrome.'
Mechanicals
First up, BMW's M division has breathed on the M5's twin-turbocharged 4.4-litre V8 petrol engine, bringing peak power up from 600hp at 5,600-6,700rpm to 625hp at 6,000rpm. Maximum torque remains pegged at 750Nm, but now it's available over a 200rpm wider rev band, from 1,800-5,800rpm. This all helps drop 0.1 seconds from the 0-100km/h time, to just 3.3 seconds. A new switchable exhaust system is also fitted, including a particulate filter, with what BMW claims to be an even more purposeful noise in Sport Plus mode. The engine in the M5 Competition is held in place using far stiffer engine mounts, to the benefit of steering and throttle response. The eight-speed M Steptronic automatic transmission is carried over from the regular M5, as is the multi-mode M xDrive four-wheel-drive system that even allows the driver to choose a fully rear-wheel-drive setting.
Plenty of detail changes have been enacted on the chassis, too, starting with a 7mm ride height reduction. Up front, there's increased camber and the anti-roll bar has a new mounting design. At the back, the toe links feature ball joints instead of rubber mounts and the spring rate of the anti-roll bar is higher. The springs all-round are 10 per cent stiffer and the Variable Damper Control system has been tweaked, too.
Anything else?
The BMW M5 Competition goes into production in July this year.