German Car Zone

The alu/leather around the shifter (or the carbon leather for M3) which is standard on a 318d, but not available on M3, where it is made of ordinary plastic....

^ It's quite simple. The metallic trim wouldn't match:



This interior uses the faux carbon fibre trim. When you tick that option on a standard M3 you don't get the alu-trim because it would look garish and out of place.

Oh I see what you mean now.

Whatever trim you choose for the M3, even if it's carbon leather, the trim around the gear lever stays the same, but it's not made of ordinary plastic. It feels like leather, don't know if it is though, but it feels much better than the silver plastic you get as standard.

I think there is some confusion here, although which one of us it is I'm not so sure. The black trim around the gear lever, ashtray, idrive control stays the same no matter what trim you choose. Even if you chose the aluminium trim option for the M3, the bit around the gear lever would still be black.

The monaco blue exterior color and the matching stitching on the interior is to die for! Wish there was a little bit of motor performance upgrade to go along with it.

Exactly, that's what i was talking about. Even though I know that the material used for that area is pretty high quality when you feel/touch it, it still feels empty. Should have been in the same color/materials as the rest of the trim....meaning either carbon leather or alu...(or wood if you choose wood for your M3?)

Thanks Betty and klier, my bad. I didn't know that they kept the trim on the transmission tunnel around the gearlever and iDrive controller black - even in the event of the customer speccing the Alu trim.

I expected this when you choose alu trim in an M3:



And this when you choose the Sycamore Wood trim (not shown in this image) for the M3:


Apologies, I'm not big on the BMW car configurator!

I think I understand why BMW only offer the black trim and this is because of the M3-specific button cutaway in this particular article.

Yes, that seems reasonable.

Wood looks nice in that 3er interior.