Future BMW M5 will be powered by boosted V8

The folks over at Inside Line have done the legwork and confirmed that the future BMW M5 will indeed be powered by a smaller turbocharged V8 as opposed to the super sedan’s current high revving V10 in an attempt to bring the luxury automaker’s fuel economy figures more in line with the new industry standard. Although the thought of a Formula One inspired 9,000 RPM ten cylinder engine screaming in a mid size sports sedan is too much to tempting to pass up, a smaller engine makes more sense for the future. In fact, BMW already offers quite a few cars with turbocharged V8 engines, this way the technology can trickle down more easily into the rest of the German automaker’s lineup.

The X5M and X6M are already powered by a 4.4 Liter twin turbo eight cylinder engine that already makes a maximum output of 555 HP and 5000 lb-ft of torque. Perhaps an M badged model would receive a bit of an increase in bore and a stroke to see the engine displacing closer to 5.0 Liters thanks to a set of lightweight forged pistons. It would have to be built to handle the additional pressure from an upgraded set of turbochargers to make somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 HP. With a highly versatile modern day direct gasoline injection system, the high performance power plant can be tuned to run efficiently when not creating as much power as possible.

The other benefit of a super tuned future M5 is that every other owner of a turbocharged V8 Bimmer stands to profit from a host of possible second hand performance parts range from turbochargers and intercoolers to waste gates and engine programs that will make hot rodding a BMW with factory parts fashionable once again. Unfortunately for fans of smaller high performance German automobiles, the sleuths at Inside Line also uncovered that just like Audi, BMW isn’t planning on pushing a motor sport inspired 1 Series compact in the U.S. anytime soon.