Here’s a classic acceleration test for you. These two iconic German saloon cars were for a period of years, the best that BMW and Mercedes-Benz had to offer. This video will give you a good idea about how a drag race would have looked like between the two.
The E39 M5 was a very special car to pretty much all people. You didn’t have to be a BMW fan or an M5 purist in order to adore everything about this sports sedan. It was notoriously good at taking on supercars and beating them in drag races, but it was also notoriously difficult to launch via its 6-speed manual transmission without a lot of wheel spin.
Even though the E39 M5 had 400 PS and 500 Nm of torque to the W210 E55 AMG’s 354 PS and 530 Nm, the Merc’s 5-speed automatic did a better job off the line. As did its extra 30Nm of torque. But seen as though power solves almost everything, the end result is favorable to the BMW.
On paper, they should accelerate about the same, but neither of them hit their manufacturers’ 0-62 time. So we would also question the road conditions in which these acceleration tests took place.