For me, personally, the E28 BMW M5 is one of my hero cars. I’ve never driven one (though I’ve sat in BMW North America’s and didn’t want to get out) but it’s always been a dream car of mine. Oddly enough, what made me originally want one so desperately was Chris Harris’ video review of his own. Every single thing he said about it was exactly what I want from a car and just made me fall in love with something I’ve never driven. Which is why this new video from EAG is so interesting for me to watch, because it gets right up close with one of my bucket-list cars.
In typical EAG fashion, this specific E28 BMW M5 is perfect. It looks like it rolled off the showroom floor back in the ’80s. While that’s in stark contrast with Harris’, as his is mechanically perfect but wears its age and mileage with pride. Personally, I’d prefer to own the latter, so I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about driving it hard and because age and signs of cared-for wear give a car character. Still, it’s lovely to see what the E28 was like when it was actually new and everything was perfect.
Also, this video is worth watching for the noise alone. The 3.5 liter inline-six engine powering the E28 BMW M5 is a derivative of the same engine that powered the original BMW M1 and comes straight from motorsport. So it’s a brilliant engine and still one of the very best the Bavarians have ever made. If there were a Mount Rushmore of BMW engines, the M88 (S38 in North America) would be on it.
The sound the engine makes; a pure, unfiltered mechanical noise; is genuinely intoxicating and you can see the pull the engine still has. North American models made 256 horsepower while European models made more, with 286 horsepower. Still, even the North American E28 M5 was more powerful than a 5.0 liter V8-powered Ford Mustang at the time, so it was astonishingly powerful, especially for a sedan.
As you can tell, I have a bit of a love affair with the E28 M5, despite never having driven it. It almost feels like those people who obsess over celebrities and make creepy Instagram fan pages for them. Just, ya know, with a car and not a human. That’d be weird.