What’s a family car? Our opinion may differ from those of other select publications. Four doors: Good. Four doors with 414 horsepower: Great! See? That’s where we lose the Ladies’ Home Journal readers every time.
With the all-new M3, BMW has thoughtfully seen fit to bring us not only the expected carbon-fiber-roofed coupe and soon a convertible, but also a nice, sensible-shoes sedan that, when viewed from a distance—like maybe two hundred yards—resembles a family sedan that even elderly Republican grandparents will find nonthreatening.
But as you draw closer, the M3 sedan becomes a wolf in wolf’s clothing. You see the power bulge in the hood, there to contain the all-new 414-hp 4.0-liter V-8. You see the enormous, drilled brake rotors. You see gills behind the front fenders that actually look as though they belong there. You notice the absence of boy-racer fog lights, replaced by huge air intakes for the brakes and engine.
More Doors, More Performance?
But mostly you notice the flared fenders and nose-low, hunkered-down profile that suggests a nearly audible snarl. Crank the engine, and the snarl becomes entirely audible. Run the M3 through the six close-ratio manual gears, and the snarl becomes an Indian battle whoop as you approach the engine’s stratospheric 8400-rpm limit. Outperforming the last M3 coupe we tested by 0.2 seconds, the sedan galloped to 60 mph in 4.1 seconds, and through the quarter-mile in 12.6 seconds at 113 mph. Despite the claimed 155-mph limiter, our test car crept up to 161 mph.
Then, like any good BMW sedan, the M3 is more than happy to lope along in the pickup line outside the elementary school, even as the more auto-savvy parents shoo their children away from yours.
As you likely know, this is the fourth-generation M3, the first with V-8 power. That V-8 actually weighs 33 pounds less than the 3.2-liter, 333-horse inline six-cylinder it replaces. The V-8 is quite the sophisticate, with a version of BMW’s double-VANOS camshaft control, individual throttle butterflies for each cylinder, and a lightweight forged crankshaft that helps make all that high-rpm work possible.
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