The Four Types of M5 Owners

1. The garage queen PRESERVATIONIST that takes his M5 out on sunny weekends and enjoys polishing it and changing the oil. His M5 has less than 30,000 miles on it. This constitutes the minority of owners.

2, The RACE CAR DRIVER who has his M5 highly modified, goes through tires, and brakes several times a year, and spends lots of time at the track with his Beast. His idea of heaven is having his M5 supercharged and spending the rest of his life at The Ring and having a permanent room at Sabine's family's hotel in Nurburgring. He loves the smell of gasoline and tire smoke.

3. The EVERYDAY DRIVER, who typically has over 100,000 miles on his M5 and drives it every day, come rain, snow or thunderstorms. This person has learned to appreciate what the M5 is capable of, but often gets discouraged by the maintenance costs. Although he realizes the costs of being a member of the elite E39 M5 club are high, he gets tremendous pleasure out of driving his M5 on his daily commute and may track his car on rare occassions. He probably doesn't use Michelin PS2s anymore because they wear out in less than a year and he drives over 10,ooo miles a year in his beloved M5. His tire of choice may be the Goodyear Eagle GT, the Conti, or the new 30,000 mile Michelin PS. This probably constitutes the majority of owners.

4. Then there's the LONG TERM OWNER, who drives his M5 everyday except perhaps in the snow and ice and is determined to get 250,000 miles or more out of his M5 with serious preventative maintenance. For him this might be the only car he owns for the rest of his life and that would be just fine with him. He doesn't like all the new electronics and "fangled gizmos" on the new Ms, could care less about an MP3 player because his favorite song is listening to the engine, and thinks anybody that doesn't drive a manual transmission car is a wimp. He's changed his old rod bearings with new ones and mounted the old ones on a plaque in the garage. He is obsessive about changing his oil at 3000 or 4000 miles and replaces his coolant, diff, transmission, and brake fluid on a regular basis. This person has probably owned a two seat sports car before or owns one now as a weekender. On the average he is in his 40s and brings home a good income.