From the April 1992 issue of Car and Driver.

When you’re talking about sports sedans, there are fast ones and faster ones and really, really fast ones. And then there is the Magnum Force.

Behold three of the highest-performance production four-doors the world has ever seen. Magnum power. Magnum status. And, yes, Magnum stickers. That all three were created in Germany should come as no surprise: only the land of the unlimited-speed autobahn could even conceive of building sports sedans as explosive and exclusive as these.

We are talking about .44-caliber performance here. Would 0 to 60 mph in 6.1 seconds tingle your brain tissue? That’s from the slowest member of the trio. And there’s more. Mighty brakes. Asphalt­-ripping grip. And—oh yes—shameless luxury. As performance-oriented as they are, these limited-production wonders don’t skimp on the niceties. Leather is standard in all three. So is automatic climate control. And premium-quality audio. And power everything. And if you want more (a trunk-mounted CD changer, perhaps?) you can order that, too.

Could these high-octane phenoms possibly offer anything else? How about enough room to carry four adults and their luggage?

Now would be a good time to pause and catch your breath.

The first of the Magnum four-doors was BMW’s M5, a 5-series sedan tweaked into a 256-horsepower beast by the maker’s esteemed Motorsport division. The M5 first appeared in 1985 and arrived in the U.S. two years later—to…