MALIBU BY MIDNIGHT
They say a full moon brings out the lunacy in all of us; well Malibu Police certainly have their work cut out when faced with the unrestrained and multi-faceted exploits of this turbocharged E60 M5
Of course we’re not insinuated for a moment that owner Ron Cash would have any unlawful scrapes with the establishment, however given the uncharted depths of this M5 it would be easy to get carried away in the moment. Now as you are probably already aware, the standard model has rampant tendencies anyway and that’s without any additional brainy mapping. Even Carol Vorderman would be thrown with the amount of sums here – Eleven drivelogic options for the gearbox, two power levels for the engine, two variations of dynamic stability control and three options of electronic damper control. Urm, can I have a manual please?!
Thankfully, you can just hit the ‘M’ button and this does all the fancy stuff for you. Super car acceleration, check (0-60mph in 4.7 seconds), slick paddleshift gears, check, romances corners better than Lindsay Lohan romances the champers, check, looks butch and fearsome enough to budge you to the slower lane even when you’re in a Porsche doing 130mph on the Autobahn, check. For our own good we’re sure, 155mph is the lifebelt that starts to curtail all this adrenaline and when things are this much fun, you certainly need miss conscience squeezing your right shoulder.
With such a flattering list of credits behind it, most people would say – do you really need any more grunt? Of course a modified car buff would just look at any mere mortals that made this assertion as if they had two heads. To us, if it’s possible, we’re going to try our luck. That said when it comes to the M5 even the handiest of spocks in the game would be perplexed by the chastised secrets withheld in its brain. Manipulating it to produce yet darker extremes would surely all end in tears…
Unless you’re a self-made millionaire with a little black book brimming with the most sought after digits in the industry that is. So did Ron let us have a little peek? Of course not, this was years of charismatic know-how and ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ kind of strategies. More than a handful of people will have an M5 but none will have the misile power that Ron has.
This claim of owning the fastest saloon on the planet, was more than enough to get our editorial team away from the tea room where a very attractive model was loitering following her photoshoot for our sister site (top-models.com) and back to their PC’s to witness these M5 snaps. At first like me, they looked at the engine shots hopeful to see these twin turbos, then back in my direction with the kind of expression the British Prime Minster must have given his defense team when presented with the infamous dossier. ‘Ye have little faith’ I mocked, shaking my head and pointing to where the rear silencers used to live; nine inches beyond the exhaust tips. ‘There?’ was the reply that broke the silence. ‘Who did he get to mastermind that one?’ A very valid question no doubt and one which I’d love to shed some light, had I got any answers from Ron myself.
Due to being a Journalist for the world wide web however, people don’t tend to tell you anything they don’t want to be broadcasted from here to Uzbekistan. Fair enough we guess, if you’d just project managed the hacking in of one of motoring’s most secure computerized systems and invested the earth in it, would you be happy enough to have your success replicated? Exactly! The good news is if you have got a spare $350,000 burning a hole in your back pocket you can have one too. Ron’s company Currency Motorcars plans to build and sell around ten of them so hold back that order for a Koenigsegg CCX and gear yourself up for this proposition: An M5 mincing up 800bhp and not holding back until that magic 240mph mark.
This all sounds very promising but we can’t help but wonder how Ron has managed to make the whole recycling power thing so efficient when the blowers are so far away from the engine. Once you squeeze down on that accelerator the blowers have to force the air back through the return pipe, through a hidden sill which goes along the passenger side, up through the wheelarch and to a custom made intercooler at the front of the engine bay where it gets sucked in to the induction system and then compressed in the cylinders. Despite this arduous journey, Ron assures us that the hybrid turbos are first class when it comes to minimizing lag and maximizing responsiveness. The twins will run anything between Four to Fifteen pounds of boost and Ron currently has two drivers lined up to demonstrate the power claims.
Now if at this point your ears have pricked up and you’re actually in a viable position to part with the cash he’s asking for then here’s something to set your mind to rest; the engine itself has not been altered and reliability was the top agenda for Ron. The reputation of his company is obviously hanging on this investment and there’s no way he was going to take any short cuts. Four grueling months after he embarked on this project and the electronics were successfully re-mapped, fast forward yet another Four and hard-line testing concluded that there weren’t any glitches waiting to happen. For Ron and his fellow Californian petrol heads, a project car needs to be something you can drive on an every day basis. Where Ron differs in his outlook is that he wants to leave some things to the imagination – that means no canary yellow paintwork, collage of stickers or larger than life spoilers, he’s not even added fancy splitters.
Of course Ron was very keen to make sure the M5 stuck to the tarmac at high speeds but him and his expert team figured out that lowering it by an inch and a half all round as well as investing in Koni dampers and H&R coilovers would do the job nicely. Due to the car’s flat bottom, it has oodles of stability even when you inflate the top speed. The brakes however are soon to be upgraded to Stoptech 15-inch discs, to front these are 20” Asanti 120 rims. The only other modification to the exterior is the re-worked front end, this allows a steady flow of fresh air to the intercooler.
It’s not until you plant your behind on the leathers that you see what all the artistic flair has gone in to. The lady responsible for such handiwork is Judy AmicAngelo, Ron’s business partner. Over the last 28 years her career highlights have included being a cabin architecture consultant for all the big names such as Porsche, Jaguar and Mercedes. Just look at the love and patience that’s gone in to this M5 though! It was by no means a small job for Judy to strip the car with all its motors, wires, bolsters and airbags but Judy managed to keep her wits about her. She then whipped up the most exquisite crocodile hide and suede to dress the steering wheel boss, door armrests and seats. Being handcrafted and hand dyed is a lovely touch – this car just breathes quality.
All that remains now is to show the world that this ambitious project is all its cracked up to be. Under the scrutiny of so many eyes will this sleeper deliver? We’ll keep you posted. From what we’ve seen there’s much more to those blowers than hot air and Malibu better be ready to get blown away.
MODEL : BMW Turbocharged E60 M5
ENGINE : Power unit: BMW standard M5 unit Capacity: 4999cc Compression ratio: 12.0:1 Power: Approx 800bhp (claimed) Torque: Transmission: standard seven-speed sequential
PERFORMANCE : Max speed: Approx 240mph (claimed) 0-60mph: not tested
SUSPENSION : Front and rear: Koni struts and dampers, H&R Coilover springs, lowered by 1.5-inch BRAKES Front and rear: standard M5 system
WHEELS : Front and rear: Asanti 120, 3-piece forged wheels (20-inch diameter), Pirelli P-Zero Nero tyres
Message édité par WildOne le 22-07-2008 à 17:27:49
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