Categories: Cars

Project Fresno: How a Forgotten M5 Became Spokane BMW’s Showroom Star

Those of you who love the brand and like to YouTube-and-chill, have probably come across M539 Restorations. Sreten Milisavljevic, a one-time resident of Santa Barbara, California, now holds-forte in a small workshop in Frankfurt, Germany. Since 2020, Milisavljevic has racked up millions of views and hundreds of thousands of followers by doing something that might be mundane to the average person: fixing BMW’s.

Milisavljevic has embarked on various rescue missions of BMW’s with problems ranging from superficial and cosmetic issues to full blown engine rebuilds and restorations. Those that watch his video’s would largely state that there is a viewing catharsis that comes with the fulfillment the viewer gets in watching as Milisavljevic bolt-by-torque-spec reconditions each project which, it should be noted, is named by the city in which he acquired the subject vehicle.

Project Fresno

History hasn’t been kind to E60 BMW M5 powered by the F1-derived S85 engine which delivered over 500 horsepower when new, especially since most were paired with an SMG transmissio. Except for the 1,364 units that were not. More often than not, BMW offers European spec models that don’t come to America. But in this case, BMW gave the E60 M5 a six-speed manual transmission for the U.S. market.

Milisavljevic paid attention to the market and when one surfaced at a salvage auction, he pounced on the opportunity to make a project out of it. Chronicled by a three episode-arc on his YouTube channel and culminated by a showing at Monterrey Car Week, Milisavljevic triumphantly put this M5 back on the road—but not so subtly as you might notice from the pictures. In addition to mechanically refurbishing this M5, Milisavljevic decided to convert its Alpine White exterior into the perfect show-car by replicating its appearance to match the BMW Ring Taxi of the E60 era. Milisavljevic did this replete with vinyl’s depicting the late (legendary) BMW taxi-driver, Sabine Schmitz, who passed away at the age of 51 in 2021.

Enter Chris Marino, GM Spokane BMW

“I had followed Sreten’s channel since 2020 and so there I was at the gym watching Episode 2 of Project Fresno—and I was a week late in watching it,” Marino tells us. “I was probably endorphin-high from the workout, but I thought to myself that I had to acquire this M5, but I assumed that since I was so late in catching the episode, the car would be gone.”

Well, it wasn’t gone and Milisavljevic and Marino worked together on a purchase agreement and Marino acquired Project Fresno for Spokane BMW. Having been chronicled by us for nearly 15 years, Marino is no stranger to acquiring and selling unique BMW models. There are many at BMW who would credit Marino for his positive propagation of BMW as a brand and his (simultaneous) daring and original factory-design requests.

“The day I picked it up, I left Oakland, California around 7 AM and arrived in Spokane at 10:45 that night. With the exception of about 45 minutes when the car was off for food or gas, it was in continuous operation for about 15 hours and behaved exactly like you would expect a brand new M5 to behave—as if it were brand new in 2010,” Marino says.

What’s next for Spokane BMW’s Ring Taxi?

Marino is proud to have this E60 M5 on the showroom floor of his store. “It’s the biggest talking point when any customer walks into the store regardless of why they are visiting,” Marino states. “You can’t miss it—and nobody does. Vendors, visitors and even customers who aren’t familiar with BMW as a brand, all flock to the car in the showroom.” Marino has seen impressive social media engagement for the store, driven simply by acquiring the M5, and plans to hold onto it for the short term.

While Marino expects that it will be showcased, locally in Spokane, the sheer number of how few were produced with a manual transmission, truly makes this M5 a historic find—one that is now exhibited properly: On the showroom floor of a franchise BMW dealership.

[Photos for BMWBLOG by Chris Marino / Spokane BMW]