You used to need supercar money to get a 500-horsepower V10, and you definitely did not expect to find one hiding in a four-door family sedan. Now you are looking at an E60 BMW M5 that makes a claimed 500 horses and sometimes trades hands for about $15,000, and the whole thing feels a little unreal. The catch is that this once untouchable monster is only “shockingly affordable” if you understand exactly what you are buying into.
The first 500-HP super sedan that fell off a cliff
When the E60 BMW M5 landed, it was pitched as a kind of four-door exotic, with a naturally aspirated V10 and a headline figure of 500-HP that put it in the same conversation as period Ferraris and Lamborghinis. That is why it is so wild to see that the same BMW M5 E60 is now described as Is Worth Less Than $20,000 Today, a drop that would make most luxury sedans blush. You are looking at a car that once sat at the top of the BMW performance food chain, now lumped in with used hot hatches on price alone.
The numbers keep getting more absurd the deeper you dig. One detailed look at the market talks about a 500 horsepower V10 BMW M5 changing hands for just $15,000, bluntly framing it as a “Bargain or Disaster?” and spelling out that this is a 500 horsepower, V10 engine, $15,000 proposition in a single breath. That same breakdown of the BMW M5 makes it clear that the depreciation is not an accident, it is the market pricing in risk as aggressively as it once priced in prestige.
Why a 500-HP V10 suddenly costs hot-hatch money
To understand how you ended up with a 500 horsepower V10 sedan for used Civic money, you have to look at how the rest of the performance world moved on. The current 5 Series performance flagship, the 2025 BMW M5, is an all-new high-performance variant of the 5 Series midsize luxury car, and it is priced like the cutting-edge tech showcase it is, not like a depreciated toy. Pricing guides for the 2025 BMW M5 treat it as a premium product with weekly updated figures, which underlines how far the old V10 car has fallen in relative terms.
At the same time, the broader supercar market has been busy resetting expectations for what “cheap” even means. While the cheapest Lamborghini Gallardo supercars on Autotrader typically go for upwards of $80,000, you are now seeing V10 exotica framed as something you can almost rationalize if you squint. One buyer guide points out that While the cheapest Lamborghini Gallardo supercars on Autotrader typically go for upwards of $80,000, the E60 M5 is sitting at a fraction of that, even though it was once marketed as a kind of four-door rival to the Lamborghini Gallardo in spirit if not in badge.
How the V10 M5 stacks up against real exotics
On paper, the E60’s V10 credentials are not that far off the poster cars you grew up with. A V10 Lamborghini that once cost $200,000 is now presented as a used-car option, with one report spelling out that a Lamborghini Gallardo V10 that once cost $200,000 is now priced in a way that makes it cheaper to buy than a BMW M3. That same piece leans on the full name, talking about a Lamborghini Gallardo V10 and a screaming 8,000 rpm redline, which is exactly the kind of spec sheet that used to make the M5 feel like a sedan-shaped supercar.
That comparison is not just theoretical either. In one head-to-head, a presenter literally stands between a $150000 V10 Lambo and a $20000 V10 BMW, pointing out that both pack 5 L V10 high revving engines and sequential manual gearboxes. The whole setup of $150000 V10 Lambo vs $20000 V10 BMW drives home how close the mechanical recipe is, even if the badges and price tags live in different universes. When you realize that the sedan in your driveway shares its basic layout with a car that once sat in gated driveways, the idea of a “cheap” V10 starts to feel less like a fantasy and more like a very specific kind of temptation.
The thrill: 8,000-rpm screams and 1,000-mile pilgrimages
What keeps enthusiasts circling these cars, even as the horror stories pile up, is the way they make you feel when you actually drive them. One deep dive into a used example talks about a 500 HP BMW for $15,000 that sounds impossible, then immediately pivots to the way the V10 screams to 8,000 rpm and delivers the kind of rush that can turn brutal fast. That same account of a 500 HP BMW for $15,000 makes it clear that the appeal is not rational, it is about chasing that last 1,000 rpm where the engine note hardens and the whole car feels alive.
Another enthusiast story goes even further, describing how someone flew over 1,000 miles just to get behind the wheel of a BMW E60 M5 and came away convinced that it deserved its legendary status. That account of a Screaming V10 Monster with over 500 horsepower is not about lap times or resale values, it is about the kind of experience that makes you book a flight just to chase a test drive. When you read that, the idea of driving across town for a cheap local example suddenly feels like the bare minimum effort.
The catch: data, risk, and whether you should actually buy one
So if the performance is that special and the price is that low, why is everyone not snapping these up? Part of the answer is that the internet has made it much harder for problem cars to hide. Shopping platforms now lean on massive datasets to surface patterns, with one explanation of Google’s Shopping Graph describing how it pulls together Product information aggregated from brands, stores, and other content providers. When you see a tool like that unpacking the real-world cost of ownership for a niche V10 sedan, you start to understand why the Product data is quietly steering cautious buyers toward safer bets.
The other part is that even the enthusiasts waving the flag for these cars are not sugarcoating the risk. One video that calls the E60 a 500-HP BMW M5 E60 that is now selling for peanuts still stresses that it is In High Depreciation For The E60 M5, and that the car is now treated as a high-stakes used buy rather than a safe entry point into performance ownership. That same breakdown of how Super Sedan Is Now Selling For Peanuts makes it clear that the market is not irrational, it is pricing in the cost of complex electronics, aging V10 hardware, and the kind of maintenance bills that can erase any savings from the sticker price.
That is why so many voices keep circling back to the same framing: a 500 horsepower V10 BMW M5 for $15,000 is either the deal of your life or the start of a very expensive story. You are looking at a car that can sit in the same conversation as a Lamborghini Gallardo on engine layout and revs, yet lives in a world where a 2025 BMW M5 is treated as the sensible, warrantied option. If you go for the cheap V10, you are not just buying a bargain, you are signing up for a gamble that only pays off if you are ready to treat this once untouchable sedan like the high-strung exotic it always secretly was.
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