E28 BMW 5 Series Ad: "The Car that blurs the distinction between racing machines and luxury sedans"

Classic car ads are always nice, because they were made in times when people weren't so wound up and actually had the time to read something. So, there's plenty of information in them, some of which is quite entertaining today, almost thirty years later.

This here ad depicts the E28 BMW 5-Series, built between 1981 and 1988, claiming that it's both a sports car and luxury sedan.

BMW is showing off the 535i here and it throws in the big guns right from the start: "It eats up the road – any road – at ungodly speed without a hiccup - Car and Driver wrote". And wait, not about this one, but its predecessor, the E12. You can only imagine, then, that the E28 535i must / should have been a better car.

And it was, because this is the generation that spawned the first M5 (or M535i), which you can admire in the gallery below, and started a new dynasty of sports saloons.

Nevertheless, the 535i was no slouch either. The ad doesn't say it, but the 3.4-liter engine had 182 hp (136 kW). However, it does brag about the "0-60mph time" – just 7.4 seconds –, the "communicative power assisted steering" and the "fully independent suspension".

And that's not all: BMW also claimed that the engine management was computer-controlled to "ensure peak engine performance".

The standard equipment list wasn't exactly long, as the E28 owner only got leather seats, air con, a sunroof and on-board computer. Even the description in the ad was short.

And I'll tell you why: because up until the current generation (F10/11), the BMW 5 Series was always a driver's car first and a luxury vehicle after. Not the other way around.

By Csaba Daradics

[Ad photo source: Tumblr]

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