Category: Affordable Sports 
Price Range: £50,725 to £50,725
Performance, handling, quality, styling, practicality, value retention
Pricey, not quite as much fun as the original 1986 M3, slightly too vulgar for some. CSL very expensive; SMG transmission flawed; Convertible has less rear room and smaller boot
One of the great performance cars, and so easy to live with
The M3's interior ambience is excellent. The cabin is well-crafted and provides well-upholstered leather seats, electrically adjusted up front, as standard. Though you can easily hear the engine, the noise quality suits the car and never gets wearing. Tyre roar on coarse surfaces, such as concrete motorways, can irritate however, and the stiff-legged ride sometimes jostles occupants excessively on badly worn roads. But as a high-speed cruiser, the M3 is very relaxing, not least because it has such impressive reserves of power, braking and grip. Being a roomy Coupe, the M3 can provide space for four decent-sized adults, even if its sports seats steal a little rear-seat legroom compared to the standard car's. Up front, there's plenty of room, and plenty of rearwards travel for the seats. The boot is big, but there could be more dumping ground inside the cabin. The Convertible is not quite so spacious - its rear seat is narrower, as a result of the need to contain the folded hood within the bodywork, and the boot shrinks, roof-down, for the same reason. But the rear bench is certainly bearable for adultsAn excellent stereo was standard, but it only played cassettes - a CD player and multi-CD stacker were extra-cost options which many new buyers went for. Other options included several types of satellite navigation, one with a colour screen.
Latest Readers' Drives About the BMW 3-Series Coupe
wrote on 21 09 2007