BMW->ke178 built the E34 series M5 from 1989 through 1995 and, in the eyes of some, it remains the purest example of what BMW intended when they designed the M5. The E34 was the last BMW M5->ke2922 to be built by hand, not on an assembly line, and it was rumored that BMW’s test drivers could determine the team that built each car by its subtle difference in performance. Plain on the outside, nothing aside from the subtle M5 badging said “high performance”, and the E34 M5 remains one of the finest Q-Ships ever built for that very reason.

U.S. spec cars came only with a 3.5-liter straight-six engine, good for 311 horsepower and mated to a five-speed manual transmission. That may seem tame by today’s standards, but it was good enough to get the big sedan from 0 to 60 in just 6.4 seconds, on its way to an electronically-limited top speed of 155 miles per hour.

Read more on this 1991 BMW M5 after the jump.

The E34 M5s have become collectible in recent years, and finding clean, low mileage examples gets harder every month. That’s what makes this particular 1991 M5 stand out even more: it’s racked up just 6,000 miles over the past 20 years, and it’s been regularly serviced. It even includes all service records, books and receipts, and has just been put through a dealership inspection.

Call us paranoid, but we’d still want it gone over by our own BMW expert, since experience tells us that anything that sounds too good to be true, is. The seller advertises that the car includes a Dinan Stage 2 suspension and Euro cam gears, but we’re not sure that’s a good thing. If it were our money, we’d ask for the original parts just in case we wanted to restore the car to factory specs.

Bidding is up over $37,000, and the reserve hasn’t been met. The “Buy It Now” price is $44,900, which doesn’t seem unreasonable if the car checks out. If we had that kind of money and were in the market for an E34 M5, it would be hard to imagine coming across another car in this condition. If $44,900 is the price of admission for a museum-piece M5, we’d pay it: BMW, after all, isn’t making any more of them.