4westdan

Vehicle on test

BMW M3
Good:

Performance, driving experience, glorious V8 sound
Not so Good:

Notchy gearchange
Overall:

Awesome. Not a word I find myself using that often when it comes to roadtests, but it’s a word I can’t help using to describe this particular car. I’ve racked my brains to come up with something wittier, more descriptive or just less “phwoaaar”, but awesome fits the bill perfectly. I’ve even used it in the video. The latest BMW M3 is awesome – it’s official.

The fourth incarnation of the M3 reached UK showrooms in late summer 2007. Initially available only as a coupe, there’ll eventually be a four-door and a soft-top as well. The previous M3 also had a hardcore CLS variant, but asking the question of BMW UK whether there’s a slimmed-down, even quicker M3 in the pipeline was met by a “no plans as yet” and a knowing smile…..

The latest M3 is the first to be powered by a V8 engine and has a six-speed manual transmission feeding all that grunt to the rear wheels via BMW’s DSC+ system. I found the gearchange to be a little too notchy for my liking and it was nigh on impossible to swiftly change gears, although that’s really my only criticism of the car. The DSC+ electronics aren’t there for show, incidentally – the car really needs some kind of assistance, particularly if you’re not used to pedalling a seriously powerful rear-wheel drive car. You can alter the settings, to “tone down” the Traction Control or switch it off completely, but many people would be asking for trouble if they did.

Point to point, the car is amazing. It’s capable of delivering some blistering performances on the kind of back roads that abound here in south Wales, while you get the impression that motorways are merely tolerated in the hope of finding some more challenging routes later on in your journey. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to drive the M3 on autopilot (like so many cars these days) – you have to give it your full attention, with the result that every journey becomes a thrill. So much so, in fact, that I found myself taking the longer way home each day just to give myself an extra ten minutes behind the wheel.

The performance figures only give you half the story. A 0-62mph time of 4.8 seconds and an electronically-governed top speed of 155mph seem impressive enough, but add the glorious engine note of that V8 and a firm but comfortable ride (thanks to an optional adjustable ride system) and you get a car that’s almost addictive. The asking price of just over £50,000 puts the M3 out of the reach of most people, but one pleasant surprise is that you don’t need to add anything in the way of extras to make the M3 an everyday car. Fuel economy and emissions figures, by the way, are both improved thanks to the use of some elements of BMW’s “Efficient Dynamics” programme, although neither will please Ken Livingstone, we suspect.

The M in the car’s title refers, of course, to Motorsport and previous M3 models have served BMW in both rallying and circuit racing. As a result, the M badge has become to BMW what RS has to Ford, with both the 5 series and 6 series getting an M range-topper. To my mind, however, the M3 is the most pure of the M cars. The M5 and M6 might be excellent examples of performance engineering, but the latest M3 remains true to the spirit of the original, left-hand-drive-only, wide-arched cars of the 1980s. I remember driving one of the original cars many years ago and one word springs to mind when recalling the experience.

Awesome.

Report by Mark James



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Attached Images

	BMW_M3_ukcarnews_01.jpg (64.6 KB, 4 views)
	BMW_M3_ukcarnews_02.jpg (82.8 KB, 3 views)
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