Many moons ago when I was working as a bartender I took a mild financial risk.
I don’t mind that life often costs money, don’t get me wrong, it is just that I like to have something, food, petrol or at least a decent memory to show for it.
The risk was an entire English Pound and was donated to that UK tradition where half the country seem to gamble on the Grand National on the basis that it is ‘traditional’ and ‘only once a year’.

Being tight I elected to back just the one horse in the pub sweepstake and was duly rewarded with the winnings less than an hour later. I would tell you exactly how much but I don’t have a clue how many horses run in the ‘National.
So by all rights I am not a gambling man, I have stayed up on my overall winnings for many years now with only a couple of EuroMillions tickets taken from the fund.

There reaches a certain age in life as a male of the species where you can no longer enter a high street bookies without knowing what you are doing. It is a bit like wandering into the working men’s club in an ‘area of regeneration’ then just sitting down and starting conversation with a stranger – you have to either be a known local or be able to pull off Lock Stock levels of banter to avoid, at best, humiliation.
I just avoid the opportunities to visit the places like Vauxhall showrooms with a quick “Nah not for me” and move on.

But this year I would like to take another life gamble. To take a punt on something that could improve my life significantly. Something that would make me very happy every day providing it pays off. I would like to buy a secondhand M5.

Caught in the deepest darkest pages of a recent credit crunch Autotrader was a perfect example. Although the current generation (£60k retail) 500bhp monster can now be had for as little as £25,000, it is the previous generation E39 that I had mentally circled. This particular vehicle was as little as £5995.

Yes you read it right. This oil baron of a car had 110k miles, FSH, TV, all the toys, and of course a 400bhp V8 to propel its 5 pampered passengers. Only a couple of minor cosmetic blemishes were on the niggle list.
More importantly it was black with black leather and of course privacy glass. In a car like this I wouldn’t entertain any other combination, if we are going to get stop searched by the boys in blue I want them to be looking for Class As, anything else is just a bit 3-Series.

It came with 3 months warranty, so if I had any inkling that there was something untoward (read ‘expensive’) after a few weeks then I could sell on with some warranty remaining and (an actual advantage of the economic crisis) a believable lie: ‘Loss of job forces regretful sale.’
The potential for repair bills to be eye gushingly large is pretty damn huge, not to mention the running costs that a 4.9 litre rear wheel drive V8 and expensive Pirellis may incur if I had any fun whatsoever.

But does this all matter? Is there a better car in the world today for the money involved? Even if, for an extreme example the gearbox catastrophically failed and it cost half as much again to have a (secondhand) one fitted, who cares? You are still getting what was widely acclaimed at launch to be one of the best all round vehicles available in the world, not to mention one of the best chassis/engine combos, and that was at 10 times its current value.
I would even take the badge off the back for maximum subtlety points, they must fetch a few quid on the ‘bay, maybe enough to start an M5 repair savings account.

I am off to get a special edition Lewis Hamilton scratchcard to see if my luck is in once again.

PS. If you have a Subaru Impreza with 412bhp, four leather seats, one of those flip up DVD players and a very reasonable service bill while only costing £3k then please don’t email me and tell me it is better.