Comparison Tests
An intriguing element of BMW's presentation for the new M5 emphasized this supersedan's all-around usefulness, suggesting it's as well suited for a wife's run to the supermarket as it is for a BMW-club track day. Putting aside for the moment the politically incorrect characterization of a wife's life, along with the notion of the primary driver's giving up control before his cold dead fingers have been pried from the wheel, we have trouble digesting this characterization, for a couple of reasons.
First, one look at the pricing tells you these cars aren't grocery getters. Not unless great-uncle Ned's recent bequest included the deed to Atlanta and your designated grocery getter needs to travel at warp speed. We can imagine an M5 doing commuting duty, but we suspect the guys who acquire cars in this price realm are a long way from nine-to-five gigs.
And for About 40 Grand Less . . .
You know what they say: 10 grand here, 10 grand there, pretty soon you're talking real money. So when a Dodge Charger SRT8 — base price, $38,095 — showed up at Hogback Road just as the Bahn Burners were heading to Grattan, we thought it would be interesting to see how this relatively low-priced missile would measure up against the high-priced execu-rockets.
The answer: very well, indeed. Better, in fact, than we expected.
Propelled by a DaimlerChrysler 6.1-liter Hemi V-8 — 425 horsepower, 420 pound-feet of torque — the 4274-pound Charger rumbled to 60 mph in 4.8 seconds, covered the quarter-mile in 13.2 seconds (a tie with the Cadillac) at 109 mph, pulled 0.90 g on the skidpad, and stopped from 70 mph in 168 feet.
The basic test numbers were impressive, but the Charger's agility on the Grattan road circuit was truly revelatory. Even though we experienced brake-fade problems during the full-tilt process, we were able to herd the bad-boy Dodge around the track in 1:32.65, just 0.1 second behind the CLS55 Benz and almost a full second quicker than the Cadillac STS-V .
That's a tribute to excellent work by DC's Street and Racing Technology skunkworks guys, as well as a testimonial to a superb job by the chassis engineers.
So the Charger isn't in the luxury ballpark with these other cars, but the Hemi does make it go, and it sounds good while doing so. And what could you buy with all that leftover dough? How about a Honda S2000? Or, thinking of maybe improving your home life, a new kitchen?
Reason No. 2: Check the specs. Check the performance data. Call us crazy, but we think 400 horsepower — the minimum on tap in this trio of fantastic four-doors — is a little over the top for a run to the A&P. And would you really want to park one of these thoroughbreds in range of some harassed parental unit herding a 10-year-old Suburban filled with screaming soccer-game celebrants? Sure, and while we're at it, we'll let the kids use the car as a target for kicking practice.
Like any passenger cars, particularly those with four doors, the members of this trio have to function comfortably in an everyday environment, which they do. But their basic mission is to perform to a far higher standard, serving up hedonism and haste in super-sized portions. The hedonism part is easy, obtainable almost anywhere. But the level of high-speed competence required to play in this game is exceptional, and it's the cars conceived for and developed on Germany's autobahns that acquire the unique combination of right-now response and athletic feel that's still pretty much exclusive to the Teutons.
This hasn't discouraged non-Germans from trying to gain membership in the Bahn Burner Club, most recently Cadillac. In fact, it's Cadillac's latest bid for recognition in this elite club — the V-series version of the new STS sedan — that brings us together. What better qualifications review than a three-way test involving the cream of the autobahn crop? Right. We can't think of one, either.
You may observe that the Caddy faces only two German opponents in this showdown and then wonder why there's no Audi in the field. Here's why: The RS 6 that starred in our May 2003 supersedan shootout ("Knockout Sedans: The Heavyweights") is out of production, and we won't see the new version until 2007. We did consider a couple other non-Germans — the handsome Maserati Quattroporte and Jaguar's XJR — but neither is in the power ballpark with this threesome. In any case, the two Germans are formidable: the Mercedes CLS55 AMG, with its potent E55 powertrain, and the latest BMW M5, generation four in a line that dates to 1984.
We've accumulated formal instrumented data on the CLS55 before ( C/D, October 2005), but the two others are virgins insofar as our Racelogic VBOX test gear is concerned.
The Caddy and the Bimmer didn't become available until late in this issue's production cycle. In fact, getting the M5 into the battle required an all-night blitz back from the car's North American introduction at Lime Rock Park in northwestern Connecticut. It joined the two other combatants the next morning at Grattan Raceway Park near Grand Rapids, Michigan. Given the time constraints, the long day at Grattan — one of the more challenging road circuits in our part of the world — was the core of our evaluation. We included some Michigan back roads and some freeway cruising. But the basic mission here is performance, and for that the controlled environment of a test track was ideal.
So, here they are: three supersedans, two of them sons of the autobahn, one a wannabe, all distinctly different, but all with well over 450 horsepower available on demand. How would it play out? We strapped on helmets, tied down the test gear, and set out to get some answers.
