[Andrew 30]

The latest BMW M3 is faster and more sophisticated than ever, but is that a good thing? Last weekend I caught up on some early reviews of the new 414-horsepower BMW M3. You can pretty much sum up all of the accolades in a quick factoid from Gerhard Richter, vice president of BMW M Power, who said in Motor Trend that the V-8-powered M3 clocked 3.4 seconds faster on the Nürburgring Nordschleife than the V-10 M5. That’s 8:10 a lap. He added: “I could do that while talking to you as I drive.” But there’s another side to that story. In the same Motor Trend review, Angus Mackenzie, the magazine’s editor in chief, called the E92 M3 “a pussycat around town.” And he wasn’t the only one. What Car? said it was “comfortable and well equipped, and is as eminently suitable as an everyday car as it is at home on racetracks.” AutoWeek said it was “not quite as tactile in its actions, perhaps, as the car it replaces.” And Car thought that “in trying to hit so many targets, the E92 leaves purists wanting.” Kind of sounds like the bean counters have turned the M3 into an AMG: all big engine and great numbers and a drive that’s too refined. My friend Jared, who’s had far more track time than I’ll ever see, is more harsh. “Haven’t driven the new iteration,” he wrote in an e-mail. “BMW hasn’t made a genuine M3 since the E36. Motorsport means fleet, not just fast, and certainly not fat. Americans want fat, obviously.” (He’s referring to the fact that 50 percent of M3s will be sold in America when it goes on sale next spring.) Jared also thinks the M3 has been on a downward slide since the E30, when it was a homologation special built to square up against the Ford Sierra Cosworth and the Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 in the World Touring Car Championship; when its sole purpose was to satisfy racing regulations and not to be profitable, i.e., the good ol’ days. Me? I loved the E46 M3 (Competition Edition) but can see Jared’s point. And therein lies the conundrum of the day. Just because the M3 didn’t start life as a daily driver does it mean it shouldn’t, with modern engineering and materials, evolve into one? At this point I need to admit to burying the lede. Jared and I began this discussion while driving an Audi R8 to Lime Rock Park for the American Le Mans Series race last weekend. And I bring up the R8 only because neither Jared nor I have driven the M3, and the R8 serves as a pretty good example of what I’m getting at. The R8 is fast. Its 0-to-60 is 4.6 seconds. We didn’t get a chance to put it through its paces (as if I have the ability) or even do a burnout, but on the winding roads along the Housatonic River leading up to Lime Rock, the R8 felt as good as the best cars I’ve driven on this kind of road. When the windows are down, the R8 sounds like an eruption. When they’re up, you could easily forget you’re in a 420-horsepower sports car. It’s that quiet. Which could be good or bad. I don’t have the $120,000 to buy an R8, so I don’t know if after spending $120,000 on a sports car whether I’d want to hear it or not. Remember the days when you didn’t have a choice? Sports cars were, by definition, loud and difficult. The Testarossa’s gearbox was awful. The Diablo’s rear window was useless (well, so I’m told). The two things I recall of my first drive in a Porsche 944 were the height of the seats and feeling every bump in the road. But things are different now. I’ve been in an Audi RS4 on the track… and it goes. On the road it’s as easy to drive as an S4. The same goes for the R8. But could they be too perfect, as the reviewers are saying about the M3? Purist is a word that gets thrown around, but for people like Jared, I think that simplifies the emotion. They long for some semblance of the idea (or soul or spirit) behind the original car — or maybe they just want to feel more of the road. My position on the matter depends on the day you talk to me. For the most part, I fall for the “best of both worlds” argument. My back can’t stand up to long encounters with “track-tuned” suspensions. I rely on navigation too much. But then there are days when I wonder if there’s something we’re engineering away that we’ll never get back.