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-   -   M5 Tragedy (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/international-automotive-scene/34922-m5-tragedy-2.html)

The current E92 M3 is faster than the current E60 M5. The M5 has more horses and a bigger engine though. (5L V10, 500bhp vs 4L V8 414bhp)

this is freaky,

especially the way some of the comments from fellow members have come true

"feel a cold chill in the spine " brrr

So you are begining to do your homework before you get your hands on the M3!

Are you getting to drive the E46 or E92 M3? To put it in simple words for you, are you gonna get the latest version?

According to the first link the runway was 11000 feet long and Juan (posting as M5Ranger) claimed that is enough for his M5 to go up to 190-200 mph and slow down. Did anybody check this claim?

Secondly, did the car go off the side of the runway or off the end? A Google search shows both versions (the second link above says that the car flew off the end).

If it is off the side of the runway, I wonder what caused the kid to lose control on what must be a straight stretch. The time chosen for the run (3-30 AM) was not a good choice, as visibility is poor at night for such speeds. And I wonder if the kid did a dry run at slower speeds, to check out the full runway before flooring the pedal.

What a waste !!! Hmm ... Quite disturbing actually.

Why do Parents give their kids such expensive machines ?? I can see this happening in India also. I see 18yr olds zipping around in Accord's and Camry's at 160 - 180 kph in the late night without a care in the world !!

Please drive safely guys - The speed is just not worth it !!

And one more point. The M5 forum members did the right thing by expressing their concerns about the safety of the proposed enterprise. But clearly the kid was not about to be dissuaded. So it would also have been useful if experienced M5 drivers of the forum had posted a safety checklist of items to be verified before undertaking such an enterprise. For example, even seemingly trivial things like tyre pressures, etc., if neglected, can come back and haunt you at those speeds. It is not for nothing that aircraft pilots have to go through a mandatory safety checklist before take-off.

After all he was just 18 years old and may not have had enough experience to know of all the issues involved.

moral - with great power comes even greater responsibility.

Shucks, that's terrible. I look at this sort of thing two ways; first I agree that it's a bad idea to give a kid with comparatively little driving experience a car with 500 odd horse power. Even after driving for around fifteen years, it's taking me a while to get accustomed to the M3's 414 bhp. You need to very gently learn the limits of both your and your car's abilities. Second, I don't like to be judgemental about these things. Nobody really knows what went wrong and at what point. Look at it this way, the kid WAS driving very fast BUT he was doing it in what he considered to be a controlled environment. He was not out on public roads endangering innocent people, for which I respect him.

It's a sad story, strikes a chord quite close to me. Drive safe guys.

Correct on all three counts.

AFAIK the E92 is very slightly SLOWER than the current E60 M5. Even though the M3 is lighter than the M5, the extra 93 bhp (M5 makes 507 bhp) combined with the SMG gearbox makes the M5 the quicker car. I think the brand new M-DCT gearbox option in the E92 M3 will change this though, and the M3 will be the quicker car with that transmission. :D