Saturday, April 07, 2007

New M3, or the Horsepower Race Continues




UPDATE: Neil (who I don't know) is very critical of my characterization of the very first M3-- the E30. He argues that the original was highly modified, just like the current one. And I guess he's right. The spirit of this post still stands, though.

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It was all over the web yesterday and in in my mailbox today (with the newest issue of Automobile Magazine, the pleasantly snobby one): the new BMW M3 is coming. On the outside it's pretty nice looking, a little bit more subtle than the previous model, and this is good.

Of note, it has a V8 pumping out 400 bhp. That's way too much power, and not really true to the early goal of this model. The old E30 M3 in the mid-80's was essentially a standard BMW coupe tricked out by the folks at BMW Motorworks. It had sides with big flares, a tuned up engine from the 3-series line and upgraded handling hardware. And that was it.

But this M3 is a supercar, belonging beside Porsche and Ferrari. Too bad.

BMW has to do this because Audi, Benz and even the Japanese luxury nameplates are pushing horsepower figures in their marketing. Too bad if so many other important qualities (present in abundance on most small BMWs) aren't enough to sell cars.

I think that perhaps this power problem should and will get addressed as climate change begins to change the automotive industry in the next decade.

3 comments:

  1. Shanan - I am with you on this one too. I think horsepower for cars is like GHz in computers - it doesn't really indicate how much fun you are going to have with it (or for that matter how much faster each machine is) ;-)

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  2. Anonymous7:24 AM

    Will it come in blue? Aesthetics matters, you know.

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  3. I'm afraid I don't agree with some of what you wrote:

    The old E30 M3 in the mid-80's was essentially a standard BMW coupe tricked out by the folks at BMW Motorworks. It had sides with big flares, a tuned up engine from the 3-series line and upgraded handling hardware. And that was it.

    That was it? Hardly.

    The E30 was, and is a 2 or 4-door sedan/saloon. Having 2 doors is not the only criteria for a coupe.

    The only body component shared between the E30 M3, and the other models in the E30 range is the hood/bonnet.

    The E30 M3 was built for the sole purpose of homologating the car for racing. This meant that if BMW wanted a component such as the suspension or the spoilers to be to a certain spec, they had to build it into the road car. When they later wanted to fit an adjustable rear wing to the race car, it had to be designed and built on the road car -- hence the Evo models.

    The S14 engine that motivates the E30 M3 did not appear in any other 3 series.

    The suspension geometry on the M3 was different from the rest of the E30 range, and was designed specifically for perfect handling. It also has 5-lug wheels compared to the standard E30's 4-lug set up.

    The front and rear windows are bonded flush to the surrounding metal to improve aerodynamics.

    The rear window has a 'cap' where the roof and rear window meet to allow the rear window to have a steeper rake compared with the standard E30, which is also to improve the aerodynamics.

    There are plenty of other differences between the M3 and the standard E30. Definitely more than just the flared fenders, engine, and 'handling hardware', whatever you mean by that.

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