Good Find Friday features interesting vehicles we’ve found for sale while conducting market analysis or appraisal research. They are not for sale by Wolf and Mare and we have no business relationship with the sellers. We just think they’re worth learning about and sharing with our readers!

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We’re finally getting to the true stars of Ronin in today’s Good Find Friday post. The fifth installment in our “Cars of Ronin” series is a 1989 BMW E34 M5. I’ve searched high and low to find a great example to feature, and while the E34 M5 was offered in the United States, they’re usually in a pretty abused condition. So for today’s find, we’ve traveled to Austria and assumed an unlimited budget. If you’re going to add one or two cars from Ronin to your collection, this should be one of them.

Released in 1998, Ronin is a crime thriller set in Europe and directed by the legendary director John Frankenheimer. The story follows a group of professional mercenaries hired to steal a mysterious metal case, depicting their planning, shifting alliances, and pursuit across Paris and the south of France. It’s a fantastic piece of cinema with a terrific ensemble cast and is one of my all-time favorite movies.

Thanks to the movie’s extended and realistically staged car chases that eschew visual effects in favor of real action (aside from a somewhat pitiful use of digital smoke in one scene), Ronin has become a cult film among automotive enthusiasts.

The BMW E34 5-Series arrived for the 1989 model year as a clear step forward from the previous E28. It kept the traditional BMW sport-sedan formula but wrapped it in a smoother, more aerodynamic body, with styling overseen by Claus Luthe. The structure was stiffer, the cabin quieter, and overall refinement noticeably improved. Buyers could choose from a broad range of inline-four, inline-six, V8, and diesel engines depending on market, and features such as available all-wheel drive and expanded electronic systems reflected BMW’s move toward greater comfort and safety without abandoning driver focus.

At the top of the range sat the BMW M5, which was assembled largely by hand at BMW M’s Garching facility. Early cars used a 3.6-liter S38 inline-six, later enlarged to 3.8 liters in Europe, with output reaching 340 horsepower. Beyond the engine, the M5 received suspension revisions, stronger brakes, subtle aerodynamic changes, and a close-ratio manual gearbox. It looked restrained, but its engineering set it apart from the standard E34 models.

The E34 5-Series featured in the movie Ronin was ostensibly an M5 variant, but most shots show a car that appears more like a lower-spec 535i modified to look like an M5. Ronin features extensive stunt driving and crashes, meaning the production would need to use multiple vehicles to represent a single car. It’s far more economical to utilize cheaper clones for these scenes instead of expensive top-of-the-line models. Some of the cars were right-hand drive models with the actors performing simulated driving on dummy controls in the left-hand seat.

Today’s Good Find Friday car is listed for sale by the selling dealer in Austria with an asking price of €67,400 or nearly $80,000. This may seem high for an E34 M5, but there are reasons.

The exterior finish of this car appears to be Dolphin Metallic, a nice metallic gray color. Based on the photos, the car appears to be in excellent overall condition, which supports the stated original odometer reading of around 24,000 miles. Exterior features include special front and rear aprons, fog lights, twin exhaust pipes, sunroof, M5 badging and headlight washers.

Black leather was optioned for this car’s interior, and it appears to be in overall excellent condition, as does the rest of the cockpit. The three-spoke leather-wrapped steering wheel appears to have nearly no wear, ditto for the shift lever for the 5-speed transmission. Heated seats, a sunshade for the rear window and automatically dimming mirrors are additional luxury amenities.

Comfort features inside the car feature manually adjustable sport seats, a BMW branded Bavaria cassette stereo, trip computer and climate control with air conditioning. The rear seat area, which appears rather spacious, features a fixed center console that was standard on the pre-Sept 1990 M5s.

This car is fitted with the earlier 3.6-liter S38 inline-six and puts out 311 horsepower and it mated to a 5-speed manual transmission. Its top speed was limited to 155 mph and could sprint from 0-60 mph in just over 6 seconds.

“Turbine” style wheels are mounted to this car, which matches the M5-style vehicle featured in Ronin. Other options included the “throwing star” style wheels and M-Parallels. Basketweave wheels were occasionally seen as well.

According to the listing, this example was originally delivered to Germany (not France, sorry) but has been in Austria for several years. It’s said to be accident free with new tires, brakes, and shocks.

The average price of an E34 BMW M5 is around $34,000. The highest sale in the last 5 years was for a final-year 1995 M5 Touring that sold on Bring a Trailer for $85,000 way back in 2021.

The most recent sale of a sedan that even got close to the asking price of this car was for a 1991 BMW M5 with 6,835 miles that sold for $65,000 on Bring a Trailer in December of 2023.

With the price of importation, would this car be worth the $80,000 asking price? I can’t find a car this clean with this low mileage currently for sale anywhere in the United States. If you’re in the market for an E34 M5, you can probably find a cheaper option, but it may not be as nice as this one.

This week’s post title is a bit tongue-in-cheek, as the BMW E34 M5 from Ronin wasn’t technically able to get away from the car pursuing it, but it sure did look cool trying to do it. I never thought much of BMW’s quad headlight front end until I saw Deidre’s creative use of the headlight and flasher switch when driving in the opposite direction of traffic.

We only have two weeks left before the “Cars of Ronin” series concludes and I’m excited to get to the final feature car, which is one of my all-time favorites. We have one more sporty French car to profile before we get there, though.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Wolf and Mare provides car finding, appraisal and auction services for sellers and buyers of collector European cars. We also provide importation services. Give us a call or drop us a line!