Driver's Notebook: Mmm, Mmm, Mmm
12/01/2007
Lives and personal standards are influenced by icons, masterworks, and cult figures. Rarely, however, do the three combine. Except, maybe, in BMW’s 3-Series, an inimitable lineage that is closing on the unsurpassable.Consider the provenance. Born in 1975 to replace the sharp-edged, three-box BMW 2002, the trey first boomed as a cult car among young, urban professionals. They inhaled its light but sincere luxury, its nippiness and the snob appeal of an import as their rejection of the Buick Skyhawk.
At a current and climbing production rate of more than a half-million coupes, sedans, wagons and convertibles per year, the 3-Series will soon have outsold Citroën’s La Poubelle 2CV (10 million of the tin umbrellas unloaded in its lifetime), is poised to swamp Ford’s iconic Model T (15 million made) and may eventually threaten the supreme machine, the Volkswagen Beetle (with 20 million its historic mark).
A 3-Series has made one motoring magazine’s Ten Best list every year for 16 straight. It was World Car of the Year in 2006. As a coupe, convertible, sedan or wagon, it is the best-selling car of its class. As a staple of personal movement, it is matched only by Converse high-tops—and they’ve been around for 99 years.
Now for the masterpiece performance version of the 3-Series, the ne plus ultra of the breed: the 2009 BMW M3. Yet another acme that all other builders of quick-handling and highly poised luxury compacts in the $64,000 range must now try to catch.
When any automobile transitions from third to fourth generation, the passage is typically cautious, changes slight, and the all-important visuals more of a nervous shuffling. With the new M3, vis-à-vis the previous product from BMW’s Motorsport division, those differences are a pole vault.
Yesterday’s M3 came with a 3.2-liter, venerated, yet elderly, inline-6 engine producing 333 hp and 262 ft lbs of torque at 7,900 rpm. It ran from zero to 60 mph in 4.8 seconds with a top end of 155 mph. Governed, of course.
Tomorrow’s M3 (on sale spring 2008) has been fitted with a 4-liter V-8 (a chip off the old V-10 block found in the M5 and M6) developing 414 hp and 295 ft lbs of torque at a valve-bending 8,400 rpm. It hits 60 mph in 4.6 seconds with an electronically limited top speed of 155 mph (remove the chip and it will do 175 mph).
Although the standard transmission is still a 6-speed manual—with a paddle-shifting automatic lurking somewhere in Munich—little else remains untouched. With 80 percent of the body panels reworked from the base 3-Series coupe, there will be no doubts that an M3 and not some lesser 3-Series is growling in your rearview mirror.There’s a carbon-fiber roof (for lightening the car and lowering the center of gravity) borrowed from the M6; a spoiler and splitter for managing high-performance aerodynamics; a diffuser to build upon that purpose; and a wonderful power bulge that gives the hood a first-trimester look. Also side vents to differentiate the M3 from its paler siblings and four tailpipes for pandering the eardrums with something booming and Bavarian by Wagner whenever you want to release the racer within. Overall, it hisses bold purpose.
The technology, both mechanical and electronic, is overpowering. The weight-reduction program extends to the extreme of an aluminum and silicon alloy crankcase, courtesy of the BMW-Sauber F1 team engineers. As a result, the M3’s V-8 engine is 33 pounds lighter than the previous model’s inline 6. In fact, the entire car weighs a manageable 3,649 pounds.
Nothing was overlooked. Huge compound brakes, again from F1 racing sources. Variable valve timing, of course. But also individual throttles, one for each cylinder, which is top-drawer, damn-the-expense stuff.
BMW’s optional MDrive system allows a driver—via the fingertip-operated iDrive command center and computer—to set his or her preferences for throttle mapping, steering effort, stability taming and suspension settings for sporting, normal, and comfortable traveling. All of which is stored and recovered with the touch of a button on the steering wheel.
Another button next to the gearshift is marked "Power." In the M5 and M6 it does just that, issuing a 100-hp bonus when it is time to leave the city behind and frolic. Or for surging passes. In the M3 it simply creates a faster throttle response.
This avalanche of new systems and devices are all designed to reinforce the M-Series mantra of man and machine coming together.
Why such a dramatic grand jeté between generations?
"Because customer expectations for the M3 are constantly rising," says Carsten Pries, head of product management for M cars. "So obviously you have to make a leap, and not in one dimension but in all dimensions— engine, chassis, suspension, the look of the car."
Such focus, he continues, can only be added if there are customers who want to go further, faster, and with greater verve in their M3s. "But we have to retain the original appeal of the car which is its authenticity and consistency. It is a true car, with everything done to optimize performance," Pries explains. "And there has always been, throughout all the models, this transfer from racing."Indeed, it has been an incredible passage from that first M3 of 1987, a homologation special that was a purpose built racecar for the street, plus dedicated badges and, of course, the M-Series distinctive red and blue stitching. In those days, 195 hp from a four-banger was cause for celebration, and not only because the original M3 allowed BMW to qualify for the German touring car series.
Fast forward 20 years and drop southwest of Munich a few hundred miles to Marbella, the popular destination on Costa del Sol in southern Spain, which was our playground to test the 2009 iteration. With miles of beaches and almost as many golf courses as Phoenix, Ariz., it is an asylum for UV-starved Germans and Brits. Traffic is clotted by European tour buses, the afternoons are brain-paralyzing hot and humid—an obvious rationale for siestas—but the olives are perfect enough to be munched all day long, even outside of the martini.
Fortunately for our time with the M3, the Andalusia mountains conveniently surround Ascari Race Resort ($176,000 initiation fee, plus a $7,045 annual fee, for an individual membership)—a motorsports complex, which has pits, a boutique hotel, a golf range and a restaurant. Bring your own car or borrow one of theirs.
The circuit—a 3.4-mile wriggle of 26 turns that drop, rise, swoop and dive with a couple of humps thrown in for those who like a touch of general aviation with their motoring—was ideal for a compact hustler such as the M3. But the driving was overtly disciplined and a lethargic series of one lap out, back in the pits, wait in line and then out again, did little to build familiarity with the track. Especially with no friendly adversaries allowed or even in sight.
Still, at least for two or three minutes at a time, we got to rhapsodize over a well-priced, comfortable road car with its brilliant chassis strengthened and lightened by much aluminum, stiffer struts and with serious attention invested in improving unsprung weight.
Handling via a steering wheel fat enough for big mitts was perfectly balanced, immediately responsive and with never a doubt where the front wheels were going. Michelin Pilots stuck to the ground like porridge to a blanket. The undeniable result of BMW’s infinite labors is a quick, sure braking, highly responsive street car for the track, and free from any rumors of roll, squat, dive and weight transference wobbles.
In the mountains, we had to damn speed limits because to obey would be to shortchange the M3 in its natural element. Which is charging and challenging all the norms of short passes on two-laners and around trucks, tour busses, and inexpensive things by Renault and Citroën; weaving, tucking in, sprinting out, with a few maneuvers of perceived madness—but only to those accustomed to the real world and with no clue as to how far within all its limits the M3 truthfully was. And all this with gears locked on 8,400 rpm without protest.
The M3’s competition among sports sedans includes Audi’s RS4, the incoming Mercedes-Benz C63, with the Lexus IS-F almost ready for market. They are pulled along quite smartly by big V8s. All deliver more than 400 hp. It should be a fascinating blitz.
BMW, www.bmwusa.com