Fyi

[tool fan]

M5 stick shift

Bowing to the wishes of the M5 “hard-core community” in North America, BMW has changed plans and will begin offering a six-speed manual transmission on M5s delivered in late 2006, our sister paper Automotive News reports. M5 arrives in the United States this fall with a seven-speed sequential manual gearbox.

[bmwdance]

 

[Chesty Bonds]

What about the "hard-core" communities of England, Australia, France, Germany, Italy etc, etc???

I'm absolutely astounded that BMW neglected to offer the E60 M5 with a manual transmission in the first place. If it's a sign of things to come in relation to future ///M cars then BMW has lost a potential customer here.

 

[codex57]

What about the "hard-core" communities of England, Australia, France, Germany, Italy etc, etc???

I'm absolutely astounded that BMW neglected to offer the E60 M5 with a manual transmission in the first place. If it's a sign of things to come in relation to future ///M cars then BMW has lost a potential customer here.

I'm pretty sure all countries will now get a 6-speed option. The article mentioned North America for prolly one of 2 reasons: 1) I remember reading that the majority of M3 purchases came from North America now. It's prolly the same with all the ///M cars. So, if the demand here is strong enough, that's a large enough customer base to force a change. 2) I dunno where Automotive News is from, but if it's a N. American based magazine, it prolly only concentrated on demand from N. America.