Commuting for fun
Great car on a good route. By Ben Barry
Getting to North Wales from the East Midlands is one of my favourite routes ever, with a decent motorway stint followed by an epic B-road run that former Jaguar man Mike Cross showed me about 15 years ago. He thought it such a fantastic test of a chassis that he signed off the XJR-S there.
This time a 5.30am start helps beat Birmingham tra¤c, my miles in darkness on the M6 and M54 melt away courtesy of the M3’s compliant ride in its Comfort setting, unerring stability, Harmon Kardon surround-sound audio, laser lights, and juicy torque from that unstressed turbo six.
The M3 makes almost identical power to the old E61 M5 Touring – the one with the V10 and lumpy gearbox – but that car always felt a little jumpy, where the first M3 Touring wears a boot like a comfy pair of slippers, and on a clear run like this it strides cross-country like Gulliver roaming Lilliput. Which makes it all the more remarkable just how alert the M3 Touring feels on a B-road. The steering is super-responsive for any car, never mind a big estate weighing 1.9 tonnes, and the front-end bite is almost as mighty as the power of the optional carbon-ceramic brakes.
I start with the suspension in Comfort mode (perfect for motorways and the best choice in town, where the M3 can feel stiff-jointed) but as my confidence builds so the body starts to feel just a fraction behind the suspension, rocking a little side-to-side, particularly at the rear. Switching to Sport locks it down, and with speed under the wheels there’s more than enough compliance to flow. Throw 4WD Sport into the mix – more rear bias – and slacken the shackles of stability control, and the M3 becomes pretty indomitable point-toand point, melding the interactivity of rear-wheel drive with the competence of all-wheel drive. Even the sat-nav seemed shocked.
To be fair, a decent commute.
The story so far
The first ever Touring version of the M3
★ Chassis; performance; practicality; infotainment; good mpg for bhp
- That front; price; weight
Logbook
Price £86,570 (£107,080 as tested) Performance 2993cc twin-turbocharged straight-six, 503bhp, 3.6sec 0-62mph, 180mph E ciency 27.2-28.0mpg (ocial), 22.6mpg (tested), 229-235g/km C02 Energy cost
30.5p per mile Miles this month
1249 Total miles 8437