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Imagine a string quartet at an exclusive stuffy tea party and a fighter jet making a low altitude, high speed pass right through the middle of it, with the jet looking refined and in its element. Seem impossible, it was, until the newest BMW M5.

The well establish concept of just how incredible a BMW M5 is, has just been re-defined. This is the sex machine at the country club. When you first see it, you think ahh, one of those sporty elegant cars, nice job on this one. That would be like the turbo lag this car doesn't have. Before you ever discover anything else, it suddenly hits you; you are in the presence of greatness. It is absolute beauty. The BMW M5 main web page says it well. In a plainer than Arial font, not too big, in the top left corner it reads "Race car for 4".

If you're a stat geek, you read the Specifications and it looks like your stat fantasy. A 5 liter, four valve per cylinder V-10, outputting 500hp @ 7750 rpm. Red-line 8250. Six speed manual or seven speed SMG. Drag Coefficient .31, 0-60 in 4.5 sec. Top Speed 155, electronically limited. As your getting stat geek drool all over the paper and imagine the exotic Ferrari-ish coupe, you see the impossible "Luxury Sedan". That's how your seizure started.

Luxury seems an inadequate term for this car, the word ultimate doesn't fix it either. 18 way power seats with two memories (how many people would you let drive this?), Merino Leather upholstery, extended to the door panels, steering wheel, and dash, a thirteen speaker surround sound system with enough initials and technology to make an audiophile study. Talking Navigation System ( I want to here the voice), An intelligent heads up display, State of the art, zoned climate control with automatic air recirculation. 2 way power roof, remote control key, 3 stage heated power front seats. Down to such details heated drivers side door lock and a built in rechargeable flash light in the glove compartment. Basically, everything rethought and upgraded again. That's just some of the standard features. It's hard to believe, but you can upgrade if that is just to Spartan. One example is upgrade to 20 way power seats from the standard 18.

BMW is not really as much about a big bad engine or luxury appointments as it is about the ride and handling. They'll only tell you about some of the engineering and I'm sure that there is as much to do with tuning the suspension as the gadgets that control it, but heres a few: Active Roll Stabilization, All Season Traction, Electronic Dampening Control, Hill Decent Control, Sequential Manual Transmission and the X drive system. Get the idea?

It's hard to cover everything in this car in anything less than a book. There is just one tiny little downside. $83,675 before any options. Umm, how much for the brochure?

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