The Car that Set the Bar
Yes, that M badge is for real. I’ve been looking forward to this shoot for a month or so now. When I first started my venture into automotive photography, I sent a message to a group chat with a bunch of my car buddies asking if they wanted to shoot their cars. My friend Nic was one of the first ones to respond. Nic owns an e30 325i and I was definitely down to shoot that car. The e30 is the car that got me interested in cars in the first place after all. To get a little deeper with it, it was a specific e30 318i that was in their family. Origins aside, a few messages later, Nic hits me with, “You wanna shoot my dad’s M5?” Now, I knew this one was special, because not only was it an M5, it was an e28 M5. The first motorsport trim of the 5 series BMWs.
This car came out around the same time as its’ little brother, the e30 M3. The M3 get’s all of the racing credit because it turned out to be a much banger of a car than the company anticipated. For as much hype the m3 got for its handling and power, the M5 had all of that too… and the cargo space. The engine came out of one of BMWs Le Mans prototypes, the BMW M1. It was a 3.5L straight-six that made around 270hp and it sounds like a dream straight out of Bavaria. This was the kick start to one of BMW’s most sought-after performance cars.
On top of the timeless chassis, kart-like handling, and roaring power that this box has, it’s also one of only 2,241 ever made before going to the next body style. 1,200 of those made it to Unites States soil. So this thing is rare, I would seem. An E28 M5 in excellent condition can go for well over $100k. It kind of makes sense considering the heritage, sentiments, number of units produced, and whatnot. But here’s the thing about this particular E28, it’s nowhere close to excellent condition. Now I’m not saying that it’s a huge shit box, that’s far from that case. It’s just that the first thing I noticed was the clear coat peeling off of the hood. This thing had clearly not been garage kept for a good chunk of its life. Part of a plastic skid plate was missing a pin and hanging down, scraping the ground. The shift knob was worn down a layer or two from use. Basically, the car had all the characteristics of being driven for most of its life. And when I say driven, I mean canyon twist, highway drag races, track day with the boys kind of driven. You know, the way the car was made to be driven. Mark, the owner, knows this very well. We were nerding out a bit over the handling and power delivery on the road out to the destination.
With how rare and expensive these cars are getting, I don’t think we’ll be seeing them on the road as much and seeing them more in showrooms and private garages. These are going to be the “Sunday Drive” cars in the next few years and it’s a little sad to think that they’ll never be driven how they were built to be driven. It’s nice to see at least one owner who can put the price tag and rarity aside and not be afraid to put the car to work a little.
