Category: Affordable Sports 
Price Range: £49,310 to £54,655
Awesomely fast, comfortable, great gearbox, practical cabin and boot.
Steering lacking in feedback, thirsty, not as exciting as you would expect.
This fast but spacious saloon is a worthy addition to the M heritage.
The 3-Series saloon received an excellent five-star rating for adult occupant protection in the Euro NCAP crash test, so there's no reason to suspect the M3 version won't perform just as well.
Naturally, there's a plethora of electronics available to keep the M3 driver out of trouble, but thankfully the stability control can be disengaged by a quick tap of a button on the centre console. In normal setting or in M Dynamic mode it only reacts when you really need it.
Six airbags are provided to protect all four occupants and sensors dotted around the cabin ensure that the right safety equipment is deployed to suit the circumstances.
There's also a stiffened boot floor and rear structure that protect the occupants in the event of a rear end impact, two-stage adaptive brake lights to help to guard against such accidents and, when the M3 is braking hard, an extra area of brake lights illuminates to warn drivers behind.
Latest Readers' Drives About the BMW 3-Series
wrote on 08 10 2007