Comparison Tests
The BMW M5 looked like it had just fudged its pants. The cooling fan was gulping air, the hunky Michelin Pilot Sport tires were frayed at the edges, and the handsome aluminum wheels were runny with brake soot.
Over the sun-dappled mountains of Santa Barbara County, an ink-black mystery sedan had nipped incessantly at the M5's back bumper for three hours. The interloper's gaping meshed air ducts were never more than one turn away from inhaling the M5, even though to slip away the BMW had summoned every last tittle of grip, torque, and brake in its voluminous reserve.
We were aghast. The 394-hp BMW M5 is the king, the picture next to the word "car" in our dream dictionary since its introduction in 1999, when it began draining our reservoir of superlatives. We've hurled fine machinery at it, including the Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG and the Jaguar XJR ("Battle of the Best," March 2000), and watched the M5 grind them into the soil. It's an O'Neill drama, it's Whistler's mama, it's Camembert.
But as sure as Captain Cook's first words were "What rocks?" when he sailed into Botany Bay, there is a car from the Southern Hemisphere that has all the requisite fixings to be a challenger. It has four doors, a 402-hp V-8, a six-speed manual cog box, rear drive, and independently sprung wheels at all the corners. And the lucky Australians can be jitterbugging on its drilled stainless-steel pedals for about $24,000 less than what an M5 costs here.
Even more stupefying is the fact that the HSV GTS R 300 - is your inhaler standing by? - initially comes out of a General Motors factory only a couple of chromosomes off a Cadillac Catera. Yes, the Caddy they can't give away.
