In the early 2000s, the E39-generation BMW M5 was the executive super sedan to have. Built a stone’s throw from some of the world’s fastest roads and engineered to be one of the fastest four-doors on them, the E39 was a rolling culmination of everything the automaker knew about building high-performance four-doors at the time. The market celebrated the M5’s pure, manual-only offering, intended to appeal to driving enthusiasts in a very big way, as an incoming breed of high-performance automatic options was being readied to help respond to incoming emissions and fuel economy regulations.
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