Vivid Racing’s F10 M5 ticks a lot of
boxes: brutal power, uncompromising weight-saving, innovative technology. And
it cuts quite a dash, too…
BMW
F10 M5 in Alpine White
Picture a stylish, crisply cut Savile Row suit; a sober black with a
delicate charcoal pinstripe. But within it resides not an accountant or a
lawyer but a snarling bear with glistening rows of knife-sharp teeth, its
rippling muscles barely contained by the genteel fabric. That’s basically what
the original BMW M5 was. Unleashed upon the crowded executive/midsize market in
1985, it took many a boy racer by surprise at the lights, looking for all the
world like the motorway-munching wheels of a travelling salesman (albeit one
who was doing rather well for himself). Beneath that stylish suit resided the
chassis from the M535i and the engine from the revered M1; it had 282hp, which
was a lot for the mid- Eighties. Hell, it’s a lot now, and it was more than
enough to show a contemporary Porsche 911 a clean pair of heels. Ever since
that original foray into the entertaining world of stealth ballistics, the M5
has consistently remained a paragon of neatly tailored brutality and, a few
generations down the line, the F10 M5 was gifted to the world back in 2011. “I
immediately loved the twin- turbo power plant,” says Rob Rohn of Gilbert,
Arizona’s Vivid Racing – the company behind the car you see spread across these
pages like a battle-ready doctor on his way to fight club. “It had a huge
torque improvement over the previous E60 model, and the new seven-speed DCT
transmission was also a big step forward.”
BMW
M5 Interior
It immediately became obvious to Rob and his colleagues at Vivid
that an M5 was the way to go for their next company demonstrator. The outfit
has been running for 14 years, during which time they’ve hammered together more
high-end builds than you’ve had hot dinners (well, if you’ve had less than 40
hot dinners). This is actually the second M5 they’ve built, so you can imagine
the fun they must have had with the first one. That brutal twin-turbo 4.4-litre
V8 must be addictive.
So, wasting no time, the guys set about
formulating a plan for the M5 that would showcase their company, working on the
already impressive base to hone and optimise BMW’s creation, push the
tolerances and put something on the scene that was genuinely jaw-dropping. As
is the nature of the business – Vivid is an agent for a number of big brands in
the tuning sphere, so it’s useful to showcase such products – the build has
been more one of evolution and constant tinkering and fettling than a mere
box-ticking exercise. This means that any set of photos you find of the car
online will differ from the last, as the guys seem unable to stop messing about
with it! We catch it in a state of tune here that represents something quite
unusual; in effect, an attempt to craft something along the lines of an M5 CSL.
A missed opportunity by BMW’s marketing men, perhaps, but something that the
aftermarket is more than able to cater for.
BMW M5 Engine
