Just because the 2018 BMW M5 comes with standard all-wheel drive doesn’t mean it can’t engage in some tail-out antics. Thanks to its 2WD mode, the latest M5 is capable of channeling its 600-hp twin-turbocharged V-8’s 553 lb-ft of torque solely to the rear wheels. 
We presume it was in this mode that BMW driving instructor Johan Schwartz drifted a 2018 M5 around the skidpad at the BMW Performance Center in Greer, South Carolina, for 232.5 miles. The distance earned Schwartz and the new M5 a place in the Guinness World Records for the record of “greatest distance vehicle drift in eight hours.” Schwartz’s drift also bettered a recent record attempt for “longest continuous vehicle drift” set by Jesse Adams of South Africa, who drifted 102.5 miles in a Toyota GT86 last year.
The world record for drifting strikes us as a somewhat dubious accomplishment in the grand scheme of automotive achievements, but we have to tip our hats to the ingenuity BMW employed in its quest to guarantee that Schwartz wouldn’t need to stop for fuel during his record-breaking eight-hour drift. The German automaker worked with the North Carolina vehicle fabricator Detroit Speed to craft a custom refueling system modeled after the kind that fighter jets use, which can be topped off in flight.
Although fighter jets manage to do this deed without human intervention, Detroit Speed’s Matt Butts served as an intermediary between the 2018 M5 driv...