Set to hit the Gooding & Company auction block at Pebble Beach later this week is a pristine 2002 BMW M5 with just 437 miles on the odometer. With so much life left, it’s not unreasonable to assume this E39 will go for quite a pretty penny.
$50,000? A lot of change for a 16-year-old BMW, sure, but this generation of M5 was never just any old Bimmer. $100,000? Getting mighty close to the price of a brand new, 600-horsepower M5 but still fair, I guess, when you consider this car is pretty much new as well and the fact that, y’know, they don’t make ’em like they used to.
Well, scratch all of that because according to the listing, this early 2000s machine is projected to rake in anywhere from $140,000 to $180,000. The 2002 BMW M5 originally retailed for around $75,000 when it was new. Yeah.
For those unfamiliar with why exactly this relatively nondescript-looking, old 5 Series could possibly be worth as much as a showroom-fresh, hybrid i8 Roadster, the E39 M5 is commonly heralded as one of the best BMWs—if not one of the best cars—ever built. With its joyously mechanical inputs, legendary handling, and a 394-horsepower, 4.0-liter V-8 that makes all the right noises, the turn-of-the-century M5 has become a bona fide classic.
According to Gooding & Co. senior specialist David Brynan speaking to Bloomberg, “There are a lot of people who collect BMWs, and for them, this is the holy grail.”
The owner of this well-kept example, one Glen Konkle of Rancho Santa Fe, California, apparently bought two 2002 M5s when they were new. He purchased one to drive and enjoy for himself and another to be meticulously preserved and, evidently, hocked for a tidy profit a couple decades after the fact. The car even comes with its pre-delivery inspection stickers, a license plate bracket still in its original wrapper and a VHS tape owners guide. (For our younger readers, VHS is to your parents what Blu-ray is to you.) This is as much a car as it is a time capsule.
Whether or not this throwback-cum-super-sedan is worth 180 G’s is something we’ll leave for you to decide for yourself. Gooding & Co.’s Pebble Beach auction is scheduled for this Friday, Aug. 24.
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