The black BMW M5 Competition with a brown interior is a Prometheus Exotics rental based in Orange County, our only M5 and the sole five seat V8 on our BMW row. Nothing about the plain badge or the brown cabin prepares a passenger for 617 horsepower and 3.1 seconds to sixty, which is why a renter wanting a sleeper with real capacity books this one.
The M5 Competition hides what it is better than almost anything on our BMW row. A 4.4 liter twin turbo V8 making 617 horsepower, all wheel drive, and sixty in 3.1 seconds, all inside a four door that looks like a large executive sedan. The V8 delivers differently from the straight six in an M3, with a heavy shove low down rather than a build, and the note is deeper and lazier under load. The size never disappears entirely, but the way it changes direction for something this heavy is genuinely surprising on Santiago Canyon Road. In Comfort, cruising the freeway toward Irvine, it is a quiet motorway car. It is the best long distance weapon in our BMW fleet.
Black over brown is an unusually warm combination for an M car, and it changes what the interior photographs look like completely. Brown leather in a performance car reads as considered rather than aggressive, which suits the M5's whole character as the one that does not shout. The black exterior needs late light or a lit street near the harbor in Newport to keep its shape, since midday Orange County sun flattens it. Shoot the car low and from the rear three quarter to get the quad exhausts and the wide rear track in frame, then shoot the cabin separately for the contrast.
The only five seat BMW we run in Orange County with a twin turbo V8. Everything else on our row is a six cylinder, or a four seat two door. That makes this the one to book when a group needs to travel and the driver still wants six hundred horsepower under them. It is also the cheapest way into a V8 on our BMW row, a hundred dollars a day under the M8 Competition. Brown leather is unique to this car in the group.
This is the M5 Competition, black outside with a brown interior, our only M5. It carries the carbon roof and 20 inch wheels standard on the Competition trim, along with the M multifunction seats trimmed here in Merino brown leather with an illuminated M logo in the backrest. Power comes from the 4.4 liter twin turbo V8 at 617 horsepower and 553 lb-ft, sent through all wheel drive to a 3.1 second 0-60 and a 190 mph top speed. Five seats, four doors, and brake pedal feel that switches between Comfort and Sport in the M Setup menu.