The BMW E39 M5: Why Enthusiasts Call It the Greatest Sports Sedan Ever Built

This is a BMW M5 from the E39 generation — the one sold from 2000 to 2003. In BMW enthusiast speak, this is the M5 that many consider the greatest sports sedan of all time. Not the fastest. Not the most technologically advanced. Just the best.

And after spending time with this particular example — possibly the best-preserved 20-year-old car I’ve ever sat in — I understand why.

The Last Real M5?

The 5 Series has always been BMW’s mid-size sedan, slotting between the 3 Series and the 7 Series. The M5 is the high-performance version. Early M5s had six-cylinder engines. But when the E39 generation arrived for 1997, BMW decided to turn things up.

The M5 came out for 2000 with a 400-horsepower V8. That was a big number back then. And it only came with a six-speed manual transmission. An automatic wasn’t even an option.

The next generation M5 arrived for 2006 with a V10 engine. Awesome on paper. But it also represented some big changes. It didn’t look as good. The design wasn’t as universally loved. Most of those M5s were automatics, and they used BMW’s confusing iDrive system. Plus, as the years went on, it turned out that generation was tremendously unreliable and difficult to own.

As a result, many enthusiasts believe the E39 to be the pinnacle — the last real M5 before BMW started focusing more on sales volume and crossovers instead of performance cars.

The Owner Makes This Car

The biggest quirk of this particular M5 isn’t a feature. It’s the owner.

This is probably the best-preserved 20-year-old car I’ve ever been in. Not just the best-preserved M5 — any car. And that’s because of an unbelievable amount of care over the years.

First, the accessories. Books, literature, shop manuals, magazines, model cars. Everything related to this car that the owner could find. He even has the original VHS tape that was given to people who bought one of these new 20 years ago. Still in the original wrapping.

But the craziest part is the binders. Three giant binders containing every single service record — every repair, maintenance, upgrade, and change ever performed on this car. Laminated.

Open the first binder and you find the original window sticker. Sticker price: around $72,000 when new. Expensive then. By today’s standards, that seems like a deal for an M5.

Inside, there’s a spreadsheet with every service this car has ever had, going back to 2000. Every part that went into this car is documented.

Now, this might make it seem like the car is unreliable. But the owner told me it has never stranded him. Never broken down. It’s only ever thrown one check engine light while driving. Most of that spreadsheet is upgrades and preventative maintenance — everything necessary to keep the car as pristine as possible.

The Quirks That Make It Special

Start with the key. Press the up arrow to unlock. Press the BMW logo in the center to lock. Simple, but unusual.

Climb inside and turn on the car, and there’s an interesting quirk in the gauge cluster: a variable redline. When the car is cold, the redline shows lower — around 4,000 RPM — so you don’t accidentally over-rev and damage the engine. As it warms up, the redline climbs to where you’d expect, around 6,000 to 7,000 RPM. Little lights turn off as the car warms up. Pretty smart.

Then there are the cupholders. Probably the worst ever created. Press a little panel and they pop out, but they’re incredibly small, flimsy, and shallow. The Germans went kicking and screaming into cupholders. They couldn’t understand why anyone would need to drink while driving. Market demands made them essential, and this was an early first attempt.

More interesting is the ashtray. Push the panel, the lid opens, and the ashtray rises up to make it easier to deposit your ashes. Not that anyone would smoke in this car.

The gear lever is a highlight. Right now it looks like a typical manual transmission lever. But get into a dark space, turn on the headlights, and the top of the gear lever lights up — so you can still see the gears and the M logo. Truly fantastic attention to detail.

The center armrest doesn’t open. No storage inside. It just slides forward. BMW provided a small center storage area elsewhere, but it’s much smaller than what you’d get in most cars.

In the driver door panel, there’s a little black piece you can push to reveal coin storage — with coins perfectly placed in their rightful spots.

The door panels also house the climate vents. Unusual. Most cars have them on the dashboard next to the steering wheel. But BMW integrated them into the door panels themselves, probably because they ran out of room on the dash.

The infotainment screen isn’t original — the owner added it from a later BMW model. It looks totally stock but delivers modern functionality like Bluetooth audio. Press the eject button and the whole screen tilts forward, revealing the cassette tape location. A little dance just so you can insert your cassette.

The steering wheel has M-colored stitching on the inside, alternating throughout. A nice piece of attention to detail.

The turn signal stalk is, and I say this every time I review a BMW from this era, the best-feeling turn signal stalk in the entire car industry. Solid. Perfect. Not loose. Doesn’t rattle. Every button and switch in this interior feels more solid and higher quality than modern BMW models.

In the driver’s footwell, there’s a trunk release button. Unusual placement. Usually those are latches you pull, but BMW put a button there too.

The Trunk and Back Seat

The trunk is surprisingly deep for a car like this. And on the inside of the trunk lid is my favorite trunk diagram ever: an illustration of three stowed golf bags, showing you exactly where to put them. That tells you who BMW thought was buying this car.

There’s also a tool kit that opens up like a table — completely flat, so your tools are sitting there on display. There’s even a dedicated spot for the wheel lock so you don’t lose it. A really good idea.

In the back seat, legroom is not great. The car has grown so much over the generations. This is old school, before rear passengers were really comfortable.

But you do get rear climate control vents with a temperature dial. Rare for a car from this era.

And more of those terrible cupholders.

One clever feature: folding rear seats. A lot of car companies have issues because the headrest gets caught on the front seat when you fold it down. BMW’s solution? The headrest stays put. It’s fixed in place on the rear shelf. You don’t have to remove it. That’s actually really smart.

There’s also a keyhole by the latch so you can lock the rear seats in place. That way, if you give the car to a valet, they can’t fold down the seats and access the trunk. An extra layer of security.

Under the Hood

The engine is a 4.9-litre naturally aspirated V8 with about 400 horsepower. That was a really big number at the time. It seemed like such a muscle car when it came out. Hard to believe how much that number has been dwarfed by modern M5 models.

One notable item under the hood: a little label warning you to turn the lights off before attempting any repairs in that vicinity, or you could end up shocked. The illustration shows a guy with a little shock running through his body. Seems questionable, but it gets the point across.

What It’s Like to Drive

I really, really love this car. I’ve always loved how it looks. And when I first drove one a few years ago, I loved how it drove too.

Good clutch and shifter feel. Not something I always feel about BMWs. Later BMWs felt too rubbery and vague. This car has great shift action.

It’s fast. Really fast. Even though it only has 400 horsepower, it’s fun to drive and really quick.

For a 5 Series, which you now consider a large vehicle, it handles pretty well. Because 20 years ago, the 5 Series was a different sized car.

Everything in this interior feels solid and well-built. When I get into a modern BMW, it doesn’t have this same feel. New BMWs are focused more on technology, and they’re miles ahead in that regard. But the build quality is not the same. The real, perfectly screwed-together feel of cars like this is gone.

The driving experience is just great. There are modern cars with better technology and more stylish interiors. This one is kind of austere. But very few modern cars drive quite as well as this one — with this solid feel, where you feel like it’s unbelievably well-built, stable, planted on the ground.

Sport mode actually works. Often sport modes are just kind of stupid, with no real function. Not here. Put it in sport mode, get on it, and you can definitely tell throttle response has been tightened up. The car feels quicker.

The steering and handling are what make it so great. A new M5 is way faster — well over 600 horsepower — but it’s almost too excessively fast. Not really controllable or usable in any realistic setting. This car at 400 is kind of just the right amount.

The feel of it is just perfect. Like an old glove that fits perfectly.

The Verdict

This was a special car. One I really wanted as a kid. These came out when I was about 12, and at the time it was the coolest car I could possibly imagine. Now, 20 years later, it’s still really cool. And it feels like it’s getting even more special as the years go on.

The E39 M5 isn’t just a car. It’s a statement about what BMW was capable of when engineering took priority over everything else. It’s a reminder that sometimes the right amount of power, combined with the right chassis and the right feel, is better than an excess of any single thing.

And it’s becoming more valuable every year. Nice ones now routinely sell for well over $30,000. That’s big money for an older sedan. But as the years go on, and as modern M5s get bigger and heavier and more complicated, the E39 looks less like a used car and more like a benchmark.

No wonder it’s becoming so expensive.