BMW M5 RENTAL

The M5 is a souped-up 5-series sedan that packs a 560-hp twin-turbo V-8 punch. It comes from a long line of high-performance sedans tuned by BMW’s M division. Larger and heavier than ever, it remains seriously fast and, thanks to sophisticated electronic driving aids, is exceedingly capable on the track. The good news: You can get a manual transmission. The bad news: The automatic is better. The 2018 M5 goes on sale in spring 2018.

Gone is the seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission shared with the M3, M4, and M6. In its place is a conventional eight-speed automatic that locks its torque converter immediately after launch. It offers three shift maps on top of a Sport mode and a Manual mode with wheel-mounted paddles. The exhaust uses a new Helmholtz resonator that lightens the entire system by 11 pounds, although we’d invoke the ghost of that German physicist on M’s acoustic engineers, who continue to pump digital noise into the cabin. Only now, a button for M Sound Control allows occupants to fine-tune the fakery.

Speaking of buttons, it wouldn’t be an M5 without 2187 ways to set the steering, suspension, stability control, shift modes, gearshift mapping, throttle, and all-wheel drive. It’s gotten so out of hand that BMW converted the preset buttons into bright red thumb tabs above the steering-wheel spokes, as if to remind you to keep changing them. At the rate of one different combination per day, it’d take an M5 driver six years to try them all, at which point it would be time to restart the process in an all-new M5.

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