Male Australians of my generation have the car fantasy gene. Second hand cars in Australian by the ’60s and ’70s were both plentiful and cheap courtesy of a growing car production industry and a middle class that could afford new cars.
My first car was a Holden 1962 FB station wagon that cost about AUD$200. By most standards it was a horrible car and whilst not quite unsafe at any speed was certainly primitive by today’s models. Pre-war and early post war cars were cheap and many people became collectors. I had friends that collected Wolseley’s, Rovers, motorbikes, of various flavours and for a while I was a Citroen collector of just about anything Citroen. Languishing away in a friend’s country garage I still have a 1951 Citroen Normale of the Traction Avant variety. Over the course of about 10ish years, I must have owned about 20 Citroens and drove most of them as daily transport.
Travel and living overseas curtailed the collecting and usually I bought what made sense at the time such as a small Mazda station wagon in the Solomons, a pick-up truck for dive gear in LA. It wasn’t until I came to Tokyo and had a financial windfall that I could actually afford something exotic. Realising I had never owned a sports car of any kind and probably having a minor fit of mid-life crisis, I bought a second hand 1991 Porsche 911 Turbo.
You got what you paid for – an incredibly quick car that would give motorbikes a fright, a car that expected you, the driver to know what you were doing and a car that is DNA imprinted as a head turner (or the car you had to pass on the highway). I had a lot of fun and whilst I never wound it out to it’s full potential, I will admit to getting to a point when the eye movement between speedo and road became such that I thought now would be a really good time to ease off and did.
As much as the Porsche was fun, I realised I wasn’t a sports car person. I prefer the Q-car, the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the sleeper. A friend stuffed a 4 cylinder engine into a Citroen 2CV and we drove it around Europe to both the amusement and surprise of bystanders and other motorists. During a trip to Germany about the same time, it was an early BMW M5 that caught my eye. Driven with a complement of (it seemed) grandmothers sliding by us at about 200kph (125mph) and deep in conversation they whished past. I say ‘whished’ as if it had been an exotic sports car, ‘roar’ would be the description but not the M5. All seemingly very sedate but in fact well over most countries speed limits.
Since then, I’ve kept tabs and occasionally counted my pennies to see if one was in my realm. Owning a car though in busy, clogged Tokyo is not a rational decision but I did. By this time I was in the BMW camp so every so often gravitated to the M side of the showroom, sighed and went back to the sensible side. Though I will admit we did have Z4 for short time and that was also enjoyable. The E60 M-5 seemed to be everything I could want in a Q-car, 500+ Hp, an engine that engineering-wise is both unusual and is considered a high enough water mark to win awards. So I waited.
It wasn’t until we moved to Hokkaido that factors worked in taking this off the bucket seat list and into the garage. Hokkaido has open roads that with care, you can stretch a car’s legs, we have a garage that can accommodate such a beast (whispered quietly – will fit 4 cars at a pinch). We got lucky with the finances, needed a second car and couldn’t find anything newish that appealed. Proof that women do listen when men start waxing lyrically about engineering things, my wife suggested ‘what about an M5, you’ve always wanted one’ At that point I realised I had married perfection.
The search was on. It had to be the later version of the E60 body style with the V10 motor, it had to be that fantastic blue with black leather, it had to be right-hand drive (I’m lazy – LHD in a RHD country is tedious) and it had to be in the budget. Earlier versions were easy to find but the Lehmann Shock had reduced the number of imports of the later versions. Wait, wait, wait……
Regular visits to BMW pre-approved site and goo-net.com and wait, wait, wait. Finally a Tokyo dealer had something. Yes! All of the above and mileage not low but acceptable. Thoughts of how to get this back to Hokkaido – road/ferry trip? By this time winter and snow was with us. Luckily the dealer would ship to our home address. Wait, wait, wait… whilst papers etc were sorted out. (In Japan, you cannot just buy a car, the local police has to visit your planned parking address to see if you have sufficient car space – on the street in front of the house, doesn’t count).
Finally the big day arrives and Mr M5 is delivered. Life with an M5 begins. I’m nervous, Kaiju sighs, looks about his new home and waits.