The claim that the BMW 2002 invented the sport sedan is made with enough regularity in automotive writing that it risks losing its meaning. It is nevertheless accurate. Before the 2002, performance cars were sports cars — two seats, impractical luggage space, a driving experience that required commitment and sacrifice. The 2002 demonstrated that a four-seat, practical saloon could be as rewarding to drive as a sports car while remaining useful for the everyday purposes that sports cars excluded. The 3 Series, the M3, and forty years of sport sedan development trace directly to what BMW did with the 02 series body and a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine in 1966.

The new BMW M5 will do zero to sixty in 3.4 seconds. It weighs 2,445 kilograms. These two facts exist in a tension that the M division has spent considerable engineering effort resolving and that no amount of engineering can fully reconcile. The car is extraordinarily fast. It is also extraordinarily heavy, and the M5 lineage — from the E28 original through the E39 that most enthusiasts consider the definition of the breed — was built on the proposition that performance and mass should not coexist if the goal is driver engagement.