2005 BMW M5 vs. 2005 Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG Steering & Handling comparison

An equal joy is carrying that speed through bends. Its steering is quick, pin-accurate, and buck-naked of understeer. Where the old M5 had a dose of push built in, just to keep things stable, the new one is so accurate and hard-wired to your brain that it doesn't need stabilizing. You won't make a mistake with it. And if you do, the electronic safety controls seem faultless. But the rush is in staying within those DSC thresholds, leaning that V-10 power into the rear wheels, feeling the balance of grip move to the first phase of oversteer and rocketing out of the curve in search of the next one.

After such a virtuoso performance, the E55 struggles. It has the grip, and it certainly packs the punch. But it doesn't have the surgical accuracy, linearity, nor the communication with its driver. The two cars are almost the same weight, but the Benz feels heavier. On these fast sweeping curves, it kept its distance and didn't want us getting down and dirty with it.

The steering is the main issue. It doesn't turn in with anything like the sharpness of the M5, but worse, it isn't consistent through a curve. So you take a series of bites, adding and subtracting lock as you go, robbed of the feedback that would give you pointers. It saps confidence as well as upsetting the car. And you don't want to upset it because the body control isn't as good as the M5's. At least not unless you screw the airsprings and electronic dampers of the Airmatic DC to their harshest settings, and then the ride is more disturbed than the M5's.

But, man, does the E55 fly. This supercharged 5.4-liter V-8 is another of the greats: mountainously torquey, licking your ears like a distant Big-Block Super Stocker. Given that it has a torque-converter autobox, its five ratios are plenty, and there's full override via buttons behind the steering-wheel spokes. Even though this so-called AMG Speedshift function is still tardier than the M5's gear response, the fact remains that acceleration is even easier to arrange in the E55 than in the M5. At slow to moderate speeds, the car can't take the torque: Its forward-biased weight distribution leaves it shy of traction. Floor it out of a sharp bend, and the ESP light flickers for long, slow seconds. Another indication that the E55 isn't the natural supercar the M5 so clearly is.