Motor Trend: 2014 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG S Model Beats The BMW M5 Competition Package At It's Own Game!

Agents, can you correct the headline title to MotorTrend instead of Car and Driver. I made a mistake when I submitted the article.

That E63 S-Model is a friction' lust mobile. Want. One. Now.

oops. meant to say "frickin' "

Not saying M5 is better than E63, but Lieberman is a fool.

E63 S: "Drops Mic" and drives off

BMW has clearly lost its trademark ultra engaging, dynamic, connected "Ultimate Driving Machine" status, even for its most sporting M variants.

Every review of the 2014 BMW M5 has reached the same conclusion.

"The BMW M5, by way of contrast, was for drivers. Quick and pulse-quickening, yet delicate and in love with the notion of finesse. Masterful in accepting inputs and its controls, fluid in its movements, all the while retaining enough refinement and sophistication to fully satisfy and delight the banking/orthodontic set. The M5, you see, is what God would drive if he/she were into driving cars. I'm not making that up. Three generations ago, when the E39 M5 and its naturally aspirated V-8 coupled to a six-speed manual debuted, that was the word on the auto journalist street: "God's car," "perfection has a roundel," and other such hyperbolic musings. Fast-forward to 2013 and things are very, very different."



"Curiously, even though it is heavier, the AMG drives lighter than the M5 does."

"The M5 suffers from the M Division's newfound love of total adjustability. The throttle response, suspension, steering, and DCT all have three modes. That makes a total of 125 different ways to set up the car. Some of them just don't make much sense. When do you not want instant, linear throttle response in an M5? I guess when you're just putting around town. But even then, when do you want that middle setting, the sort-of-fast throttle response? The adjustable steering's even worse. You get the impression it was decided that the car would have three different steering modes, and then the engineers were given the task of thinking up what exactly those modes should be. Their solutions were heavy, heavier, and sword-in-stone. None is very good. Contrast these with the single, really good steering solution in the AMG and you start to see the M5's problem."

"The other issue with the M5 is isolation. I've typed this many times before, but the F10 platform is the problem, as it shares components with the 7 Series and Rolls-Royce Ghost and Wraith. Those are luxury cars of course, and as such the M5 feels like a bank vault with the speedometer always reading 100 mph. "Really," you think to yourself, "How is it possible I'm going so fast?"

"While the competition between these two is quite fierce, AMG has built the slightly better hammer. But as we were conducting this test, M Division announced that it's considering AWD for the next batch of M cars. It seems things are just heating up, so watch this space. In conclusion, hats off to the boys at M for greatly improving what has up to now been a frankly disappointing M5. And hearty congratulations to AMG for beating BMW at its own game. Until we all meet again."

There really isn't much left to say. BMW for some reason never realized that it would lose consistently against the all-wheel drive offerings from Audi and Mercedes-Benz or didn't care. Now it is once again following in the footsteps of its competitors.

First it was 4 cylinder engines in the 3-series, then turbo-charged engines and now all-wheel drive in its M sedans. BMW is clearly missing significant trends in important market segments.