Firstly let me apologise for my absence since the Lamborghini blog. I have still been out there and plugging away at things. I went to the Britcar Championship at Silverstone over the Easter weekend. But the weekend did not go to plan. I may well still write about that one after I’ve had a little more time to work out my angle. Essentially I was caught in the middle of Storm Katie and for one reason or another the photos are not to a standard that I want to show. So onward to the next episode in the adventures of me and my camera.
As I touched on in my first blog I am the proud owner of a 1999 BMW M5. I’ve owned the car for four and a half years. My wife and I have ties to Cornwall and go down there a couple of times a year. I’m sad to admit that we’ve only ever been down there once before in the BMW. So when we decided that we were going there again we were only going in one car, the M5.
The car doesn’t live a charmed existence, but I do take it off the road over the winter and I’m fortunate to have a second car so the M5 is my toy and hobby. I didn’t want the first time using the car after it’s winter hibernation to be a 600 odd mile round trip to Cornwall. So I taxed it and did a few preliminary runs to see if the winter break had any detrimental effects and if any small problems had emerged. After a hundred or so miles there were no problems. The next hurdle to clear prior to the road trip was the MOT. For some reason these are three letters that strike fear into any car enthusiast. Most people know their cars inside out and better than any mechanic. But as soon as the car goes in for it’s MOT the assumption is made that on the drive to the testing station it will suddenly have emissions comparable with a Victorian power station, and a similar level of rust as an early 80’s Lancia. Well, these are the thoughts that ran through my head anyway. My M5 was made in April of 1999, so it is an early one and rust has started to show its face. I’ve had various bits repaired and replaced, and the car is in very good condition, but chasing rust is becoming the biggest job in keeping the car ship shape. My worries were in vain though, she sailed through the test with no advisories or concerns. I even got an “it does sound bloody lovely that” and an “it’s a great car” from the tester, so I could rest easy. The green light for the Cornwall trip was well and truly lit now.
The last long run the car did was a trip to Le Mans in 2014. My lasting memory of that trip is the surprisingly good fuel economy. With three passengers, a boot full of camping equipment and air conditioning on the whole journey, the 5 litre V8 did the 400 mile trip on a tank of fuel. But these are the types of journey that the M5 was designed for. It is really where the car excels. It has all the power you’ll ever need, is extremely comfortable, and an excellent sound system. It’s safe to say I was really looking forward to this journey. The joy of an M5 is its excellence at eating miles on the motorways, and then as soon as you hit the smaller local roads it magically morphs into a nimble, agile, powerful sports car. Cornish county roads are great providing you stick to the well-worn paths, but we’ll get to that in a bit. This time I set the computer to give me my MPG and on our arrival at our lodgings it was showing 22MPG; which I must admit I was a little disappointed with. There had been a lot of traffic on our route down there and lots of slowing down and speeding up so that had probably harmed it somewhat.
(image taken by Net Car Pictures)
We stayed near Fowey on the South Coast and the road that took us from the A38 to the accommodation was bliss. Where we live in Hertfordshire is a pleasant enough area, but as with everywhere in the commuter belt the chances of getting the road to yourself are pretty slim. Generally your rear view will be filled with a grille and the four hoops associated with another prestige German manufacturer that I’m not all that keen on. So this road (the B3359) from the A38 was a blend of open countryside, fast sweeping corners and much tighter twists, and best of all seemingly no one else on it! The M5 is fitted with an early ‘sport’ system. It does not change power of the engine or lower the car’s suspension like on more modern cars. But what it does do is remove some of the power steering assistance and make the throttle more sensitive. The car suddenly feels more urgent and you can feel a very noticeable difference. On these roads it is an absolute must to press it. The steering feel is just sublime and gives such confidence in the car’s abilities. One criticism that I have is that the throttle is too sensitive. I find it difficult to get a smooth gear change with sport mode enabled. This is something that has improved with practice, but is could do with being refined slightly. It can apparently be rectified and refined with any of the many number of engine remaps that are offered for the M5. My enjoyment of the ‘sport’ button had also probably had a slight effect on the overall MPG figure for the journey. But hey, I had an empty B road and an M5; what else was I supposed to do!?
One of the days we decided to drive to the north coast and visit Tintagel and Port Isaac. Not long into our journey we were diverted away from the main roads and found ourselves in backwater Cornwall. Between the 4 satnavs in the car (the wife’s sat nav, mine and my wife’s IPhones, and the car’s own system) we made our way onto the smallest, most rutted, most covered in cow poo single track lanes. They had extremely high banks and a very noticeable lack of passing places or places where we could have turned the car around. The passing places there were had very soft verges and I knew the chances of getting the car stuck were quite high. My car isn’t to ‘concourse condition’, but it is clean. I’ve spent a lot time and money getting it to the condition it is in today, so with anxiety set to fever pitch we continued our journey. Fortunately we made our way back to the main roads without incident and I’ve never been so pleased to see the back of a caravan as I was that day.
It was the development in satnav systems where I thought the car really showed it’s age. From the beginning of the journey it was continually trying to pull us down tiny lanes that a Fiesta would struggle with. So I changed the settings to ‘on main roads’ and it seemingly made no difference. Every time I rely on the system in the car it gets me into trouble. The time we went to Le Mans and relied on it, it led to a rather spectacular fail but that’s another story for another day. All I’ll do is insert a picture that’ll speak a thousand words.
*ahem*
When the car was new the ‘professional navigation system’ would have been an amazing feature to have and would have probably cost a huge sum of money as an optional extra; but that would have been 17 years ago and it has not stood the test of time well. Yes it works, but experience has taught me that a modern phone can do a better job. If you cast your minds back to when satnav was new and truck drivers were being directed down single-track lanes…fortunately technology has advanced significantly.
Having now taken the M5 back to Cornwall I am sad that I’ve only taken it twice. It was an absolute asset and made the trip that bit more enjoyable. Caravans, slow moving vehicles and twisty roads became unwitting participants in me falling in love with my car all over again. The best news of all is that it is right at the start of the show season, and I have another five months of road tax to make the most of. As I type this, I’ve just been informed we’ve been invited to a wedding in June in North Yorkshire: bring it on.
Last year I joined the BMW Car Club Great Britain. Something I had meant to do a long time ago but for one reason or another I had never got round to joining. (read about my experiences here). It’s been a great 10 months and I have met some great folks and have really benefitted from being in the club. While we were in Cornwall I got a text message from the regional chairman saying he wanted to display my car at a special event the following week. I was obviously flattered to be asked and for him to consider mine to be of display standard as there are some other pretty special cars in the club. As I was typing “YES” as my response my thoughts turned to the state of the car. While she wasn’t completely filthy, she was pretty damn dirty with mud and needed to be showroom condition. It was going to be a mission to get her ready in a pretty short space of time. We were due back on Saturday, the car needed to be at the event location by Wednesday. The only days that were forecast as being dry were Sunday and Monday. What happened next was 16 hours of intensive cleaning and prep work.
So “what is the event?” I hear you crying. You’ll have to check back in for the next blog to find out. Some clues to keep you guessing: champagne and canapés, a celebrity, BMWs, and my car…
G Frank Fotos 
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