BMW Brings Back Fire Orange With an Ultra-Rare M5 You Can Only Buy in Korea

Can a Color be Iconic?

To answer that question, we’re inclined to say yes. Mention the words Guards Red, Championship White, or Bayside Blue to any car enthusiast, and chances are they’re already visualizing what car is draped in those colors.

That brings us neatly to BMW. One of the most memorable colors to grace its products is Fire Orange. For the US market, that was applied to the E92 M3 Lime Rock Park Edition. In other parts of the world, that was on the limited-run M3 GTS from the same era.

Meanwhile, in South Korea

It’s been a while since BMW offered Fire Orange to customers out in the open. However, over in South Korea, the company held a Create Your Own BMW Edition contest back in May. The top five most-voted designs would reach production and later be sold in limited numbers there.

One of the winners was a BMW M5 Sedan finished in, you guessed it, Fire Orange. Only five units of these cars will be sold in South Korea at around $128,000 apiece, guaranteeing collector status. Aside from the unique color, it also gets the Bowers & Wilkins sound system, along with an anthracite headliner and seats trimmed in Kyalami Orange. It also comes with carbon ceramic brakes and the M Driver’s Package that raises the speed governor to 190 mph.

The Other Contest Winners

The other winners included a pair of BMW M2 coupes. One is painted Voodoo Blue, while the other is Frozen Portimao Blue. Like the M5, those cars are limited to just five units for South Korea, and both cars are equipped with automatics instead of a manual.

As for the other two, there’s the X5 xDrive40i M Sport in Dravit Grey, and the other is an X3 20 xDrive in Dune Grey. Yes, Dune Grey is a regular color in the American X3s, but apparently not the case in South Korea. Both are limited to 30 units each.

You Can Build Your Own Fire Orange M Car, Too

You don’t have to move to Korea to get the chance to get these exclusive and limited-run models, though. You can order an M5, or even better, the popular but pricey M5 Touring in any color from BMW’s past catalog. That said, it’s not an option in the American configurator, but anything’s possible given enough cash and your closeness to your BMW sales executive.

There’s more fun to be had in the German configurator, though. There, we visualized a Fire Orange M5 Touring and, well, it’s quite the result.