Now this is a Police car!

My apologies GTM, I misunderstood you. Between a 997 and an E60 M5... Hard call. The BMW has more power, more gears and a very sophisticated transmission. It also has an additional 450kg to cart around.

I think the only objective measure would have to be nurburgring lap times, but unfortunately I don't have up to date information... For 996 vs E39 M5 (the 5.0 V8, 400hp one) then the 996 has it by 11 seconds (8:17 vs 8:28). The lambo Gallardo is at 7:52 and all I know for the V10 bmws is that the M6 is around 8 mins.

These numbers are for road-legal cars with road tyres. The fastest is the Radical SR8 at 6:52.

 

Just found it... the E60 M5 has been clocked at 8:13. That means if the 997 is as little as 5 seconds quicker than the 996 then it will be quicker than the M5. I'm actually quite suprised at this as I would have thought the BMW's outright straight line speed advantage would help a lot on the very long, fast sections of the nurburgring, but clearly the twisties make the difference.

 

Did you see top gear last week Mike?

They had the new BMW M6 vs Astons Latest DB9 variant, vs a 911.

 

Chris - missed top gear last week. Isaac, I wonder how much quicker the M5 would be around the Ring if its top speed wasn't limited to 155mph - particularly an issue on the very long straight near the end. Unrestricted the M5 would do 200mph.

Don't know how the M6 differs in performance from the M5 but I'd take the M5 anyday.

Michael.

 

I wonder though... they may remove the speed limiter from the car to do the nurburgring laps.

Oh, and every time that a journo has tried out some fast german car the speed limiter always seems to be broken... I suspect that they claim to limit it and they only fit the speedo to 250km/h, but the actual limiter doesn't exist.

 

The limiter definitely does exist allthough it's sometimes set a little higher than 155. IIRC Autocar tested the M5 to 165 before the limiter kicked in. FWIW the limiter kicks in at pretty much 155 in my M3 The speedos all read well beyond 250km/h...mine reads to 290. The alleged top speed of the E36 M3 without limiter is about 290 (180mph).

Porshce of course doesn't abide by the gentlemans agreement to stick to limit to 250km/h. If you get an AMG merc they provide a "de-limit" option. If you want your BMW delimited you have to get it chipped.

Michael.

 

(Alegedly), Audi's can be de-restricted by pressing a few buttons. There is a set sequence you go through involving the on board computer, switch lights on, press horn twice, etc.
The MFA on my old Mk.2 Golf had a similar function (not to de restrict it of course!) in that you could access certain data. This was never explained in the owners or Haynes manual's, but the information was available to dealers for fault diagnosis.
Give it a try, you might get lucky

 

Paul - I can access the hidden functions of the on board computer but none of them can be used to derestrict the car (at least, not that I'm aware of). They do things like change the OBC language, and give you various diagnostic readouts like, instantaneous fuel consumption in L/hour, digital speed readout etc.

Michael.