Andrew Frankel

I’m getting old. I listen to Radio 2. I can remember the moon landing but not the names of my children, and my wife comes home with new trousers for me bearing the label “Comfort Waist”.
Happily the irresistible onslaught of time has yet to affect my view of cars. Or so I thought. Give me a fast car and a racetrack and I’ll drive it as fast as I can for as long as it still has rubber on its wheels – the lighter, more powerful and quicker the better.

Which is why this new BMW M3 saloon really worried me. Contrary to expectations, I liked it.
Why the surprise? When the M3 coupé came out last summer, I admired it as a technical accomplishment, yet it still left me unmoved. I didn’t like the way it looked, didn’t like the price tag and didn’t even much like the ultra-efficient but rather soulless way it got from one place to the next. How could a heavier, slower, softer saloon version possibly be anything but worse?
Partly it’s to do with perception. See a low-slung coupé and you automatically interpret it as a sporting recreation first and an everyday car second – otherwise no one would tolerate the absence of back doors and a cramped rear cabin. A saloon implies quite the reverse.

Specifically, however, the M3 saloon just happens to be much more attractive than the coupé. Its proportions are better, the back looks like it belongs to the front and the whole is rather more understated. Moreover, while it weighs more and has less performance than the coupé, if you can sense the 55lb difference in a corner, or the 0.1sec dropped in the sprint from 0-62mph, you have a backside of astonishing sensitivity. Indeed I suspect it’s all window dressing and that BMW is merely pretending the saloon is a smidge slower than the coupé to justify the latter’s continued existence at a price £1,415 higher than the identically equipped saloon.
However, none of this really explains why I stepped away from the coupé feeling like it would not be the end of my world if I never drove one again, yet when my time was up in the saloon I felt like not giving it back at all.

At first it’s hard to find out why it feels different. The two are mechanically identical: the same 4 litre V8 engine pushing out the same rousing 414bhp. They use the same six-speed gearbox and when a double-clutch seven-speed semi-automatic option becomes available later in the year, that will be the same in both cars too.
It’s only when you talk to people at BMW that you find out the setup of the saloon has been subtly but significantly altered. Its spring rates are softer while its dampers and antiroll bars have been retuned to suit. And in Britain at least, where the roads are a sight more bumpy and less predictable than the glassy surfaces in Germany, this new suspension works beautifully. Soft enough to be smooth yet sufficiently controlled to be able to exert total authority over the body’s movements, it flows from one apex to the next in one seamless, supple motion.

I am sure that if you took both saloon and coupé to a racetrack and flogged them as fast as they would go, the lower weight, and extra torsional rigidity of the coupé would translate into a faster lap time, but outside the realm of the pub bore, who could care less about that? You should care more about its ability to house four adults in reasonable comfort.
However, neither I nor BMW is expecting the market to see it that way. For this is not the first M3 saloon ever to be sold. Back in the mid1990s, BMW did sell a four-door version of the M3 until it realised no one was interested in it. Just 500 were sold in the UK in four years, and while BMW reckons it will shift 400 of these new saloons each year, that’s still less than a quarter of the number of coupés it plans to sell in the same period. Sad truth is its customers would rather pay extra to look flash.
Not me. I’d settle for the cheaper, more attractive, understated, comfortable and accomplished saloon. And if that makes me old, then there’s a lot to be said for it.
Vital statistics
Model BMW M3 saloon
Engine type 3999cc, eight cylinders
Power/Torque 414bhp @ 8300rpm / 295 lb ft @ 3900rpm
Transmission Six-speed manual
Fuel/CO2 22.8mpg (combined cycle) / 295g/km
Performance 0-62mph: 4.9 sec / Top speed: 155mph (limited)
Price £49,415
Road tax band G (£400 for 12 months)
Verdict An M3 for drivers, not posers
Rating
Date of release Now
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