BMW has finally unveiled its flagship high performance F10 – the all new BMW M5, seen here in Monte Carlo Blue. For the F10, BMW has given it a higher level of design differentiation over the regular F10 and F10 M Sport, unlike the E60 where the cars looked almost the same from the front.

Moving to the rear, there’s a subtle bootlid spoiler, and like the M Sport bumper the reflectors have been moved up nearer to the tail lights. Where the M Sport bumper featured a gloss black section around the tailpipes, the lower part of the M5 bumper gets an aggressive bespoke look to complement the classic M5 quad tailpipes.

What’s in the engine bay is pretty much expected – a 4.4 litre twin-scroll twin-turbo V8, which the turbos sitting inside the V bank, so we have to say goodbye to the high revving V10 of the E60 M6. The V8 is similar to the engine in the X5 M and X6 M, except the power output is a wee bit slightly higher at 560hp instead of the 555hp in the M SUVs. Peak torque is the same at 680Nm from 1,500rpm.

There are some changes though – like most latest revisions of their force inducted engines, BMW has now managed to cramp Valvetronic valve control into the cylinder heads, which means there is now no need for a conventional throttle. This means that now technically even though the new engine does not have the individual throttle butterflies of the outgoing V10, each intake valve acts as its own throttle, so you could consider this new engine as having a total of 16 (2 intake valves per cylinder) individual throttles!

Other changes compared to the M turbo V8 engine in the X5/X6 M include an increase in boot up from 1.2 bar to 1.5, and an increase in cylinder compression ratio from 9.3:1 to 10.0:1. Peak horsepower comes in earlier at 5,750rpm compared to 6,000rpm, and this peak power is sustained up to 7,000rpm. Redline has also increased by 200rpm to 7,200rpm.

Also, unlike the M SUVs which pair the blown V8 with an M Sport Automatic to drive all four wheels via xDrive, the F10 BMW M5′s engine hooks up to a 7-speed BMW M DCT twin clutch transmission, which drives the rear axle’s Active M Differential.

The car hits 100km/h in 4.4 seconds, and goes on to a top speed of 305km/h, which is by default locked to 250km/h unless you buy the M Driver’s Package.

There are two different wheel options available, as we found out from an online BMW M5 configurator tool. The press photos only show one wheel design, a nice optional 20 inch forged design with 5 slim doublespokes called Style 343M, similar to the Style 351M wheels and the E63 M6′s wheels. The other style has double the amount of doublespokes in a 19 inch size and is called Style 345M, and this design was previewed on the M5 Concept. The 345M design is standard on the F10 M5.

These wheels are wrapped with regular tyres just like all M cars, which just goes to show that run flat tyre technology doesn’t seem to have caught up to the standards which BMW M wants just yet. You will also notice the color-coded 6-pot brake calipers which the slim spokes so proudly show off.

The instrumentation cluster continues the tradition of having white backlighting instead of amber, complimented with red needles. The black panel multi-info display on the lower half of the display is also a shade of light blue instead of amber on regular F10s. This blue theme continues in the iDrive menu system, which is also now blue instead of red.

The 7-speed DCT transmission gets its own bespoke shifter and shifter surround. The trim around the shifter area also seems to be fixed to the black shade you see above, instead of following the dashboard and door trim as with regular F10s.

The suspension system uses Dynamic Damper Control and offers Comfort Mode, Sport Mode and Sport Plus Mode. Comfort is self explanatory, while Sport stiffens the dampers a little. Sport Plus stiffens the dampers even further. These drive modes also control the M Servotronic steering system’s assistance levels, with the most assistance naturally being offered in Comfort mode.

However, there isn’t the usual rocker toggle near the gear lever as with the F10 for selecting these modes. It looks like what you have to do is control it via a button somewhere and the black panel display shows you what options you’re cycling through.

The “default” trim for the dash and doors seen here is Aluminium Trace (F10 M Sport is Aluminium Hexagon), but you can also specify Finewood trimash grain Brown or Fineline Anthracite.

The most adventurous leather trim you can go with has got to be this full Sakhir Orange trim, but you can tone down on the orange a little with Sakhir Orange/Black, which switches certain areas of the interior to black for a more two tone look rather than just orange all the way. There’s also options for a leather wrapped dash.

As for color choices, other than this blue you see here the rest are all different shades of grey or white. What about a nice red like the debut color of the X6 M? Perhaps it’s coming soon in the future. Look after the jump for a huge pic gallery of the new F10 M5.
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