BMW M3 Competition

HELLO

£74,000 OTR/£86,745 as tested/£1,260pcm

WHY IT’S HERE

Is BMW’s mighty M3 still the performance saloon benchmark?

DRIVER

Rowan Horncastle

THINGS MOVE OUT OF THE NEWS CYCLE QUICKLY THESE DAYS. Doesn’t it feel like a lifetime ago that our feeds were filled with substantial scotch egg meals, the European Super League and the great M3/M4 grille controversy? People lost their minds over all three of them. But especially when they saw that BMW had slapped some fat nostrils on the benchmark performance saloon. People like me. Was I wrong?

Well, having lived with a new G80 M3 Competition for a week or so now, I’ve mellowed to its face. Or become blind to it as there’s also a lot to unpack with this sixth-gen M3, which is a useful distraction.

The new M3 is bigger, heavier, faster and techier than before. It has an uprated ‘S58’ straight-six that was first seen in an SUV. It’s connected to an eight-speed auto (not DCT) that has the possibility to feed all four wheels. These make ‘M people’ (not the band) wary. So I’m thankful we’re going to be spending a lot of time with this car.

So what exactly do we have to play with? Well, quite a tasty spec. It’s an M3 Comp: so four doors, 503bhp, rear-wheel drive and no chance of a manual all slathered in the superb oxymoronic subtle-but-punchy Isle of Man Green paint. With extras, this is an £87k BMW M3. Eighty seven grand! But then you’ve got to remember that the M3 is now effectively occupying the space the M5 used to. Which kinda justifies the price.

But it is quite the hike. The last M3 that TopGear ran (the spiky F80) was as generously specced as you could get it, and that came in at £64,560.

It’s been an eventful first week, having spent about eight hours working out what all the buttons do, securing the fastest parking ticket in BMW UK’s history and finally suffering a puncture. But what I have found is that there’s plenty more to talk about than that grille. And we haven’t even got onto the driving, which is pretty special too.