Many people thought that the engine we wrote about in 2023 was Volkswagen’s last W10 engine from the early 2000s. It was being held by a German Volkswagen mechanic when he heard that the other two engines were broken. We will know just where to look for them by 2025. The first one is in a test car that looks like an E39-generation BMW M5, and the second one is in a private collection. Ferdinand Piëch led the W10 project while he was chairman of the Volkswagen Group until 2015. The W8 engine powered the Passat 4Motion, the W12 engine powered many Volkswagen, Audi, and Bentley cars, and the W16 engine powered the Bugatti Veyron. He was in charge of developing the W engine family. Two more W engines that were planned but never made were the W10, which was supposed to power a sports car, and the W18, which was supposed to power the Veyron before engineers decided on the W16. The official specs for the W10-powered sport sedan have been lost over time, but a new Drive Tribe film says that the Volkswagen Group didn’t have anything similar. Volkswagen bought an M5 from the E39 model to use as a test mule. This made it harder to test the engine in real-world situations. Piëch’s team picked the M5 for more than one reason. With its W layout, the W10 was much smaller than a V10, which was a benefit, and there was enough room in the engine bay to fit it. Another reason was that the M5 was supposed to have great driving, so the chassis didn’t need to be changed a lot. The basic shape of the E39-generation M5 made it look like a regular 5 Series sedan to people who don’t know much about cars. The six-speed stick was another important part. Volkswagen is said to have built the one-of-a-kind M5 with a W10 engine for about €2 million, and a quick look under the hood shows where the money went. Even though this project is a bit of a trial, it is being done perfectly. There don’t seem to be any loose or hanging cords or parts that are put together sloppily. Volkswagen even made an airbox for the engine out of carbon fiber. But it’s still just a build. VW even got rid of the stability control and ABS, so it doesn’t have any safety features. The instrument panel looks like it came from a race car, and the center stack has several extra gauges. Piëch drove the M5 every day, even though it was full of smoke and fuel fumes. He had a great time! Invoice-pricing says that the one-of-a-kind M5 with a W10 engine costs about the same as a brand-new Ferrari Purosangue. Adding it to your collection is likely to cost around $500,000. Is it worth it? No matter what your opinion is, there is no right or wrong answer. However, we think that a half-million dollars is a reasonable amount given how unique and great the prototype is. We want to know if there are any other W10s out there. What happened to the one we talked about in our story from 2023?
