The “M” appellation has consistently been aloof for BMW’s ultra-high-performance lineup. Insiders and car guys about the apple breeze to absorption and ogle jealously whenever one of these heavily adapted versions of an otherwise-commonplace BMW drives by.
The adumbration of blooming aloof for those witnessing the new M3 will be the darkest of them all. While antecedent Ms accept been abundant performers, they sacrificed a lot of ride abundance in barter for track-worthy chops, but the 2008 M3 is apparently the aboriginal I’d acclaim as a circadian disciplinarian for alike a accidental enthusiast. That’s right: For about $60,000, you can accept one of the best able commuters ever, and it will amaze anyone on the track, too. This is automotive nirvana, authentic and simple.
Performance on the Street
The basics of the new M3 are as follows: A 3 Series coupe, convertible or auto serves as the canvas, to which BMW’s M engineering artists add a 414-horsepower, artlessly aspirated V-8 agent beneath a new, arched hood. That awning is bare to fit the V-8, seeing as the 3 Series is acclimated to banal six-cylinders (OK, so the turbo six in the 335 is appealing abuse nice, too). The M3 has a bargain attitude and rides on 18-inch auto and high-performance tires. There are huge brakes — 14.2 inches up advanced and 13.8 inches in aback — as able-bodied as cloister tailpipes out the back.
All this is put to the analysis through the rear wheels. On the street, this agency you can bark out from stops, but because the agent is a high-revving activity — with best ability advancing at 8,400 rpm — the M3 doesn’t barrage like a archetypal beef car. It’s at the abutting akin that it excels: Second accessory is a adventure ride that feels like you’ve been placed in a metal sled and launched bottomward the alley from a garage-sized slingshot.
Handling? This affair carves corners and feels as buried as any all-wheel-drive accomplishment car I’ve apprenticed recently. The low ride acme and added abeyance construe to abundantly bigger handling. Council isn’t heavy, either. Gripping the thick, about foam-like actual of the council caster is abundant harder than axis it. I was abashed to get in the new 135i auto a few canicule after and acquaintance a caster that was annoyingly abundant and adamantine to turn. The M3’s is absolute after cutting bottomward your triceps.
The abandoned check in accustomed active is the tall, broken chiral shifter. This has bedeviled every chiral BMW I’ve anytime tested. Every added Cars.com analyst who collection the M3 agreed: This is one bad stick. There’s no acumen for BMW to accumulate it, but it seems the aggregation brand actuality different. It’s absolutely too bad, too, because the alive acquaintance of the larboard bottom on the clamp is terrific.
I don’t apperceive why M drivers would accept an automated chiral alike with the less-than-optimal stick shift, and that’s why BMW offers a actual adult double-clutch seven-speed automanual as a $2,700 option. I activated the dual-clutch chiral briefly and anticipation it absolutely able alive through apparatus seamlessly, but I adopted the manual.
For drivers who accept the manual, the clamp depresses calmly and springs aback out smoothly. It’s not too abundant and not too springy, nor does it assume to apperception all the power. It’s artlessly perfect. One of the capital affidavit I’d endorse the M3 as a circadian disciplinarian is because the clamp won’t abrasion out your larboard leg during rush-hour traffic. That abutment is additionally helped by the actuality that, with the abeyance set to either Accustomed or Comfort, alley imperfections don’t account a lot of exceptionable shuddering.
This is a beauteous accomplishment for BMW. In added high-performance machines I’ve activated — like the Chevy Corvette Z06 and Audi RS 4 — you feel like you’re an inch off the ground, with every arch collective or city able sending a blow through your spine. Aback you opt to about-face off the performance-tuned M Drive settings (more on that later), the M3 handles these well. It’s not as adequate as a Lexus, obviously, but I’ve apprenticed acceptable 5 Series models that didn’t ride this smoothly.
Performance on the Track
I collection a new M3 auto with the dual-clutch automanual on the actual ambitious Alley America clue in Elkhart Lake, Wis., and begin that its personality there was abundant like it is on the road. It was acutely well-composed on the track. It was about eerily capable, demography boxy turns with affluence while the well-bolstered seats and low centermost of force kept my anatomy upright.
Oddly enough, it didn’t feel like a car fabricated for the track. A lot of engineering time was spent on this car so that it could adept courses like this, and it did, but there was little skin-of-the-teeth feel. That said, it apparently took the advance faster than any of the abounding added cars I collection that day. The brakes performed alluringly beneath acute conditions, and the administration was pinpoint. Still, I didn’t get the aforementioned exhilaration I did active the new BMW 135i on the aforementioned day, or alike the previous-generation M3 on that aforementioned clue a few years ago.
M Drive
Included in a $3,250 Technology Package, M Drive allows drivers to change a cardinal of accomplishment settings in a cardinal of means through the iDrive interface, so you can’t get M Drive after iDrive. Among the settings that can be controlled are burke response, council and suspension. Once set, a distinct button on the council caster will appoint the M Drive settings aback in motion. After those settings engaged, the M3 charcoal in accustomed mode, which is what I acclimated for about 90 percent of my accepted driving.
Interior: Still a 3 Series
Inside, the M3 is basically the aforementioned as any 3 Series — coupe, convertible or sedan. My auto tester is acutely the best applied of the three. It can backpack four adults to dinner, it has a rather ample trunk, the backseat folds and, yes, a babyish bench will fit in aback for adrenaline-junky parents out there.
Special touches for the M accommodate abundant M3 logos in the doorsills and on the seats. The seats themselves are additionally abundant thicker than the accepted 3 Series’, and our tester came with upgraded covering that had an about glossy feel to it, against the chapped covering you acquisition in best affluence cars. It’s a $950 stand-alone option, but, hey, why not?
M Pricey
Considering the M3 is such a ablaze accomplishment machine, the sedan’s starting amount of $53,800 is absolutely reasonable. Actual few M3s will hit lots that bare-bones, however. Of the 600-plus M3s currently in Cars.com’s civic inventory, alone about 20 are stickered beneath $60,000. Starting prices for the auto and convertible are $56,500 and $64,950, respectively.
Options that run up those prices accommodate the Technology Package for $3,250; the Premium Package — which includes the $950 Novillo covering seats — for $1,900; a Cold Weather Package for $1,000; absolutely air-conditioned 19-inch auto with high-performance tires for $1,200; HD radio for $350; Park Distance Control for $350; an iPod/USB adapter for $400; and Sirius Satellite Radio (including a one-year subscription) for $595. Bluetooth is an added $750. There’s additionally a gas-guzzler tax of $1,300.
Add all that to a auto and the absolute hovers aloof beneath $65,000. That’s absolutely how our tester was equipped, though, and alike at that amount I’d alarm it a steal. I’d apparently cede the Park Distance Control — which I didn’t anticipate formed decidedly able-bodied — and Sirius, though, and opt for a moonroof ($1,050) instead.
Safety
As you ability expect, the M3 has not been blast activated by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, but the approved 3 Series has. It accustomed top marks in aboveboard and side-impact tests, but aloof an Average brand in rear collisions, which kept it from accepting Top Safety Pick status.
BMW M3 in the Market
The M3 competes anon with the Audi RS 4 and Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG. I’ve activated the RS 4 but not the new C63. The M3 calmly bests the accepted Audi RS 4 for me because of its civilian amenities as a circadian driver. I’d alike analyze the M3 to the Corvette Z06 and its 505 hp because of their agnate prices aback well-equipped. If addition offered me a best amid the two, I’d bound at the M3, afresh for its aggregate of acumen and road-conquering capability.
