^go back to the 70's, the AMG W & C123's were running 5.0 V8's,... even alpina couldn't come up with a decent 5 series competitor for these cars.
in the late 80's the W201 (cosworth, evo & EVOII) could outhandle & outperform the E30 M3 & M3 Evoultion (even though the M3 evo was for me probably the best weekend track car ever made - LDH only)
in the 90's the W202 C36, C50 & ultra rare C55 slapped the sh*t out of the E36 M3 & M3 evolution.