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The standard bearer of sport sedans for many years has been the BMW M5. These are cars that literally reshaped the idea of what a sedan could do. Beyond these supercars in disguise, it’s easy to overlook other fast 5 series that BMW has cranked out over the years, like this 540i 6-speed manual for sale in San Francisco. With just a tick under 60,000 miles, this one is very well preserved executive express. For those who think the cooking variety 540i might be a little sedate and the M5 a bit too brash, the 540i with the 6-speed manual gearbox strikes a nice balance.
Red can be a hard color to pull off well on a big sedan – they sometimes end up looking like the Fire Brigade’s car. But there are some notable exceptions; Red C4 Audis, for example, look particularly spectacular when well polished. Another car that seems to stand apart from other large red rides is the E34 BMW. Just look at this M-Sport model in Hellrot – it’s a brilliant example of how to do the lines of a car properly. I really wish BMW still made sedans in this mold; it was the first step in cleaning up the U.S. specification bumpers into a well-unified design and I’m not sure that they’ve done much better since. While last week I wrote up a E34 M5 that most people seemed to like, today’s example answers at least one of the complaints of those that didn’t with the M60 V8 packed under the hood. Otherwise, this car is as close to a M5 as one could get in 1995:
I was so certain that we I had written this car up before as the Racing Dynamics prototype, I initially wrote the headline up as a “revisit”. But the year was wrong, the wheels were different, and then I noticed something – that earlier car was an R48, and this car took it to the next level. A full bored and stroked 4.93 liters, the RD50 pushed the performance envelope past the M5. With discrete body modifications and some of the best looking aftermarket wheels ever fitted to a BMW, this is certainly a unique alternative to the normal E39:
About a month ago, I wrote up a 540i M-Sport; black over black with the requisite 6-speed and popular M-Parallels, it was an instant hit for our fans. The price was even pretty reasonable; it was certainly in good shape, for sure. I had only two real issues with it; one is that I probably wouldn’t buy a black car again and that I honestly preferred the M-System “Throwing Stars” to the M-Parallels on this car. As if to answer my concerns – and replete with half the mileage of the last example – comes this stunning white 1995 example:
We’ve featured a few cars with engine swaps over the last few weeks with BMWs seeming to be particularly suited to this modification, given a healthy variety of motors enthusiasts have to choose from. Carter highlighted a 1986 325es with an M60 swap last month. An E30 with eight cylinders? Surely a recipe for a good time. But if you need to haul a bit more cargo or passengers, the E34 5 series Touring is a supremely wise choice. This final year E34 Touring has received a heart transplant by way of a 4.4 liter V8 and 6-speed manual gearbox. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a sleeper in Imola Red, but you are sure to catch a few unsuspecting people off guard with this Touring.
