"adidas" (Addidas)
04/08/2014 at 12:21 • Filed to: None
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"adidas" (Addidas)
04/08/2014 at 12:21 • Filed to: None | 8
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M8 and V12 X5 Lemans face to face.
Manuél Ferrari
> adidas
04/08/2014 at 12:25 |
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Dat M8. Ugh I wish that car had been made.
djmanila
> adidas
04/08/2014 at 12:25 |
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Now those need production. Gold BBS FTMFW
RazoE
> adidas
04/08/2014 at 12:25 |
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M8 you say?
Barbarian772
> adidas
04/08/2014 at 12:27 |
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Oh my god, I want this...
Jagvar
> Barbarian772
04/08/2014 at 12:30 |
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Wow, I've seen the M8, but I never knew BMW made a V12 X5. Very cool (both of them)!
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adidas
> Jagvar
04/08/2014 at 12:43 |
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It was a concept with a 700hp engine related to the Lemans racer they had at the time. Very unlikely for production but still hot.
Textured Soy Protein
> adidas
04/08/2014 at 13:09 |
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From a good Car & Driver article about the X5 LM:
The X5 LM ranks right up there with the ill-considered purchase of Rover as evidence that the boys in Bavaria have gone completely meshuga. Last spring, they plucked an X5 off the South Carolina assembly line and brought it back to the mothership in Munich. A 15-member surgical team was waiting there with one of BMW's cast-alloy, 6.0-liter V-12s selected from the stable of engines used to assault and conquer the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The compact 60-degree DOHC unit is narrower and shorter than the X5's stock 4.4-liter, 90-degree V-8, so it settled in without much persuasion. However, the V-12 weighs 176 more pounds than the V-8. It also needs 50 percent more cooling area, so the surgeons cut gaping holes in the bumper and hood to move cold air in and hot air out. Pending news that oxides of nitrogen are actually good for us, the exhaust is pure, untreated toxins.
It could have been worse. The original plan was to shove in a V-10 from Ralf Schumacher's Williams-BMW F1 car. But none of BMW's conventional transmissions can handle an 18,000-rpm redline, and X5 project leader Edward Walek wanted to keep the driveline and body as close to stock as possible.
"We wanted to find out what the absolute limitations are of the basic X5," Walek says. The other reason: Get people accustomed to the idea of a BMW super-ute. BMW will begin building a hot version of the 4900-pound X5 within 18 months. Prototypes dubbed "X5 HP" were on hand at the Nordschleife featuring the BMW V-8 bored and stroked a few millimeters to 4.6 liters and mated to a recalibrated GM five-speed automatic. A short test drive on public roads revealed some electrifying thrust from the 350-hp V-8. Expect runs to 60 mph in less than six seconds and a top speed of about 150 mph.
Meanwhile, the horribly mutated X5 LM is capable of reaching 186 mph, owing to a V-12 that makes 700 hp at 8000 rpm. That's about 200 more horsepower than the Le Mans car, because the X5 breathes through twin 80-millimeter conduits. (At Le Mans, the engines were restricted to 32mm apertures.) The power is transmitted via a twin-plate racing clutch to a ZF six-speed manual from an old 850CSi coupe. The gearbox is apparently hardy enough to stand up to the engine's 531 pound-feet of torque, but not in first or second gears, which are only allowed to see part throttle. The stock transfer case preserves the X5's torque split of 38 percent up front and 62 to the rear.
Apart from the engine and transmission, the rest of the X5 LM is largely stock. It squats lower by 1.9 inches in the front and 1.6 inches in the rear, sports firmer springs and bushings, and wears 20-inch wheels veneered with Euro-market 275/35ZR-20 Michelin tires in the front, 315/35ZR-20s behind. ABS is gone, as is the hill-descent feature used to give ordinary X5s a dram of off-road capability.
Fitted with slicks, the X5 LM did lap the Nordschleife in a blistering eight minutes, five seconds — 15 seconds faster than the factory's Z8.
No Prius Needed
> adidas
04/08/2014 at 17:33 |
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Also RWD and was prone to oversteer so they canned it.