A 2008 BMW M5 with a six-speed manual and 13,329 miles on the clock hammered for $156,800 at RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction, buyer’s premium included. That is nearly double what the car cost new. It is, by any reasonable measure, a record for a publicly sold E60 M5.
The Silverstone Metallic sedan spent 14 years with its second owner, who added roughly 7,000 of those miles. Black Merino leather inside, documentation in the glovebox, and service records showing a 2023 power-steering job and fluid change. Not quite factory original, though. A lowered suspension was noted by the auction house, along with a California emissions restriction requiring the car to go to a dealer or out-of-state buyer.
None of that cooled the bidding.
The engine under that hood is the reason. BMW’s naturally aspirated 5.0-liter S85 V10 made 500 horsepower and spun past 8,000 rpm, a product of an era when BMW M was still borrowing ideas from its Formula 1 program. Most E60 M5s left the factory with the seven-speed SMG automated manual.
American buyers lobbied hard enough that BMW developed a traditional six-speed for North America, offered at no extra cost. It was slower in a straight line. Nobody buying one today cares.
The manual transmission removes the SMG’s well-documented reliability headaches, but the S85 still carries its own baggage. Rod bearings, throttle actuators, and assorted electronic gremlins have sent plenty of owners to specialists with five-figure invoices. A low-mileage car with a clean history doesn’t erase those risks. It just makes them easier to stomach when the alternative is a used-up 120,000-mile example with unknown service history.
What puts the $156,800 figure in sharper relief is the competition. In January, a 3,400-mile SMG car sold for $150,555 on Bring a Trailer. Fewer miles, but the wrong transmission. In June, an 11,000-mile six-speed manual in Black Sapphire Metallic brought $132,000 on the same platform. That car had fewer miles and arguably a safer color. It was also a re-list, having previously sold for $127,500 four years earlier. The trajectory was clear, but the Monterey result blew past it.
Monterey Car Week is the most concentrated gathering of wealthy collectors and competitive bidders in the hobby. The setting inflates results. A six-speed E60 listed quietly on an online platform in February would not fetch $156,800. But Monterey didn’t create the demand. It amplified something already building.
BMW listed the 2008 M5 at roughly $84,000 new. This car returned about $72,800 more than that, eighteen years later, without adjusting for inflation. It now costs more than the base price of the current G90 M5, a car with twin-turbo V8 hybrid power making 717 horsepower and weighing nearly 5,400 pounds. The two machines share a nameplate and almost nothing else.
The E60 M5 was always polarizing. The styling aged awkwardly for years before cycling back into favor. The iDrive system was loathed at launch. The engine was fragile and expensive. But the V10 sound, the mechanical manual, and the sedan packaging created something BMW has never attempted again and almost certainly never will.
Whether another E60 can touch this number without the Monterey amplifier is an open question. The supply of sub-15,000-mile six-speed cars is vanishingly small. The ones that surface tend to find buyers who already know exactly what they want and what they’re willing to pay.
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