If you can’t beat M…

I  can’t remember ever being this excited about a launch before. It all started out in third gear back in March of this year, on a sweeping, yet gently cambered turn on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, with an extremely vocal set of tortured Bridgestones howling for grip along the most challenging patch of driving roads, along the breathtaking coastline of Southern Australia.

I was test driving the newly released BMW 325 coupe from Melbourne down to Port Campbell, which is considered by many as one of the most scenic drives in the world, stopping by such natural wonders like the Twelve Apostles rock formations along the way. I knew I should have been paying more attention, yet for some reason, my mind kept drifting off to a much higher place – a place where dreams come in little boxes that you can tick; a place where even just mumbling the word “ordinary” will cost you a couple of Euro in the swear jar; a place where M is the most powerful letter in the alphabet.

As if to crank the foreplay up a notch, last July, I picked up a 335 Bi-Turbo Cabriolet in Germany just before heading to Spain for the international press launch of this almighty M3. Another car I should have just simply enjoyed for what it was. Instead, driving it felt more like being strapped into a front row bucket seat of the longest, most seductive strip tease you can imagine. If the situation were cast with humans, this would be the equivalent of sitting in a hot tub, lit purely by candle light, listening to some Barry White pouring out of a surround sound system like expensive Cognac, and having Angelina Jolie nibbling on your ear and scrubbing your back while waiting for Natalie Portman to walk through the door and disrobe.

It’s almost embarrassing to put this all down on paper, I know, but it’s as close as I can get to describing the knotted tension and pangs of desire I felt in my stomach just hours before I was able to wrap my fingers around that thick, meaty, hand-stitched leather steering wheel. As I said, I can’t remember being this excited about a launch before. Yet despite my boyish, seemingly blinded enthusiasm for the M3, the car had its work cut out for itself. After all, even if I was a tad giddy, the car has a hell of a history to live up to, plus I had just tucked away 300 kilometers or so behind the wheel of Porsche’s all-new, 480hp, Turbo Cabriolet – so I can tell you that if the excitement was high, the expectations were even higher.

As I climbed into the anatomically formed, leather trimmed, M sport seats, a large part of me was afraid that I may have built the car up too much in my mind, so I take an extra moment to settle in. The seats are firm, sculpted, and supportive, but surprisingly comfortable at the same time. Once I dial in the perfect driving position, the six speed shifter becomes perfectly placed, just by my hip, making gear changes feel extremely natural, almost like you were drawing a gun from a holster.

The instrument binnacle glares back at you with a very taunting 330km/h speedometer and an ambitious 9,000 rpm tachometer. From some angles, it almost looks like a written invitation. Everything else is cleverly laid out, aligned to the driver and within easy reach. To call the interior beautiful would be wrong; it’s provocative, edgy and very involving. You haven’t even gone anywhere, and already you feel deeply moved.

There’s no comfort access in this model, which means I have to insert the key into a slot. Pressing the Start button just above it feels almost like poking a sleeping tiger. It growls into life, but is remarkably, almost disappointingly, civilized. I’m completely settled in, hard-wired into M mode, so I make a deal with my co driver, Vernon Sarne from Top Gear Magazine, that if I drive to the track he can drive back. I don’t want to be swapping seats halfway through and slipping in and out of “the zone”.

This is, after all, almost six month’s worth of foreplay coming to a climax. If only Vernon knew the whole story, he would have probably jumped out and hailed a cab instead. We’re about to be flagged off. I’m completely absorbed in the moment; I don’t know what is exciting me more – the journey or the destination. While BMW have chartered out a 2-hour dynamic route through the twisted roads of southern Spain, blending in a perfect mix of high speed motorways and largely un-policed mountain passes that can really give the chassis a work out, our final stop just happens to be the world famous Ascari Race Resort – a place where you can order cake and eat it too.

First thing you notice is that the car is surprisingly easy to drive. The clutch is light, the steering even lighter – if you close your eyes, it is just like any other 3 Series. No erratic idling, or Latin-tempered radiator, or any other trade offs that you would normally expect to tag along with 420 hp.

I pondered for a moment why BMW didn’t release an SMG model at the launch, but it seemed quite obvious. While Audi continue to perfect their DSG, which is a double clutch version of the sequential gearbox, nobody wants to come out with dated technology. People like Porsche, Mercedes and no doubt BMW have been cracking their port and polished heads trying to come up with something even better, but until then, a six speed manual box is the safest choice.

I refused to waste another minute more thinking about it as I rowed through the gears and felt the closely-machined feel of one of the most accurate gearboxes you can mate an engine to – even if you do have to do all the work yourself. The precision is unparalleled, and anything else can be safely blamed on the driver. Besides, no matter how advanced technology can go, the feeling of calling up third gear on a long patch of pleasure-packed power curves can be almost spiritual.

Actually, I’m glad BMW didn’t stoop. Not including an SMG in the new M3 is a wise move until they can come up with something better than Audi.

I’m careful not to get my fill out here on public roads, no matter how tempting some of them may be. Besides, I know that euphoria is just around the corner. I stick to the speed limit, which is a chore in itself, but I’m still enjoying the drivability of this thinly disguised Munich monster. It’s firm, but not unreasonably so, considering its capabilities; the competition brake pads squeal a bit under very light, city-style braking and the back seat is not even big enough for a dirty thought. But its par for the course for anything that packs this kind of punch.

I turn to Vernon and ask how far away we are from the track. He checks the road book, and then looks up at me with a face that looked like he had just plugged a 110 volt plasma TV into a 220 volt socket and said. “Oh s**t! Sorry. I read the wrong road book. It’s the one from yesterday! We’re almost back at our hotel.” We were expected at 10am. It was 9:50. And according to our SATNAV, we were still 100 kilometers away from the track.

I’m not sure what was more challenging, the race track or the white knuckled ride there. For legal purposes, I cannot elaborate on the drive from here to the race track; but suffice it to say that we made it in an hour and that those freaking mountain goats deserved everything coming to them.

We pull up at the track just over an hour after opening time and casually line up at the pit entry trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible even as the sweet smell of roasting brakes began filling up the wheel arches. I grab my race coupons and line up. We’re given ten laps each to put together our impressions – two behind the M5 pace car and eight on our own.

Accelerating out of pit lane, it doesn’t take much to keep up with the M5. There’s more top end in the V10, but around this privately owned 5.425 kilometer race track, being light on your feet will get you around faster. And it shows as we come around the tight, second gear, first corner. I close in under braking and I’m able to get on the gas so much earlier and even have to back off a bit to let the M5 build up a rhythm.

There’s none of this devastating pull that you get in the Porsche Turbo, but the upside is that you can feed the power more evenly around the corners and not worry about a sudden explosion of thrust that can upset your balance mid turn. It’s linear, and therefore easier to predict. There’s also the unrivalled raw pleasure you get from being driven from the rear instead of being pulled on all fours. The M folk are quite touchy about this subject – they feel that no real sports car should burden the front wheels with anything more than steering and braking.

I bury the brake pedal deep into the foot well as I come over a blind crest that immediately bends hard left and brace myself for the gravel trap until I feel that suffocating bite of those inner-vented compound discs kick in and wash off all that unwanted entry speed, allowing me to still make the turn. There’s so much stopping power in the bag that it covers up my sins quite nicely.

I begin to appreciate the purity of the M philosophy as I put my entire faith behind the accuracy of the steering during a series of fast curves with even faster direction changes. It’s only at the ragged edge where you realize how important it is; good steering is a living thing that can play a more vital role than horsepower, and only once you commit yourself to a fast turn with a rapidly decreasing radius, you become grateful for not weighing it down with a job it was never born to do. BMWs have always had terrific steering, and the M3, with its totally redeveloped underpinnings and front strut brace, just upped the ante again.

By the fifth lap, I’m totally confident. I’m no longer racing from corner to corner, but stringing them together fluidly. I have a fairly decent mental picture of what lies around each bend, so I’m thinking in sectors now. I may have only done five laps, but many corners are familiar; one of the intriguing aspects of the Ascari race track is that many of the turns have been designed to emulate legendary racing curves, including Eau Rouge, Paddock Hill and the Karrousel.

There’s no sign of fatigue yet so I let it rip. I wring out each gear, calling up every single ounce of power this 4 liter V8 can muster up. The M3 is such a willing accomplice, pleasured by every stab of the throttle and turn of the wheel. The power dome on the hood just adds to this whole experience; sitting just in my line of sight, it seems pregnant with endless possibilities and constantly reminds me of what lies beneath.

Coming up is a series of fast chicanes. Unlike the laps before, I decide to brake a bit before entry, drop it down to third and build speed coming out. The entry speed was perfect, I knew this as soon as I was able to pin the throttle before the exit and power out with almost 60° worth of opposite lock on the wheel. The back end slips out, which is a glorious moment, and I hold my breath for the electronics to kick in and retard the power. But it doesn’t. Amazingly, the DSC will only kick in at the last possible second, allowing you some tail out heroics before slapping your wrists, while the M diff makes sure that not a precious drop of power is wasted on the inside wheel, which has hardly any weight on it, and transfers everything to the outside rear tire that has all the bite. It is, by far, the best system I have ever tried on a production car.

I’m absolutely buzzing by this stage. But despite the incredible brakes, the violent acceleration and the awesome steering, shifting from 3 rd to 4th, and eventually 5th before taking a super wide right hander flat out on the redline at over 200kp/h and drifting out slightly, has got to be one of the most satisfying driving experiences of my life. There is a point in every man’s life when he feels his most alive. That point, my friends, is 8400 rpm. And, it’s not just the sweet spot that pierces your soul–the cacophony of sounds that is created during the meteoric rise to the redline is something that should be placed on a CD and sold in your favorite music store. Probably in the Mozart plays Heavy Metal section.

As I climbed out of the M3 for the last time and patted its carbon fiber roof, I felt so completely fulfilled that I almost lit up a cigarette – even if I don’t smoke. The last five laps were so intensely rewarding and satisfying, and felt even better than anything I had played out in my head during the months leading up to this. There wasn’t a single part of my body that wasn’t tingling. I almost asked the car, “Was it as good for you as it was for me?” because after ten flat out laps and several hundred kilometers, the new M3 delivered more than I expected. Despite the hype. It’s not just their finest one to date, it has also become the new ambassador to sheer driving pleasure.