The long version

The S38 straight-six is hand-assembled and maintained accordingly — timing chains, cooling systems, and electronics that reward an owner willing to learn the car rather than outsource it, which has kept this generation in the hands of people who would rather turn a wrench than write a check for storage. Values climbing in the E28's wake have started drawing speculative interest, but the base of committed drivers has not thinned out much yet. It is the last M5 built before BMW started building M5s at volume, and the ownership base still treats it like a project worth finishing.