BMW M3 and M4 unveiled in Detroit

[quote=Kamelo]While many of your readers seem annoyed at the number of Land Rover or Jaguar stories that grace this website, which I do have a little sympathy with even as a Range Rover Sport (and Porsche) driver. However for me, with each new BMW communication, my once huge repect for the brand and company dilutes ever further. While I undestand that BMW aficinados will drule over the sports seats of either the M3 or M4, or indeed the perforamce figures, I cant help but see the huge - and I mean huge - corners that have been cut with those cars. Just look at the interior. These are £50,000+ cars, ladies and gentlemen. What you have is the same basic fascia architecture as in a £16,000 114i. The same cheap plastic button that grace the centre instrument panel. Horrible. Even if they use a different colour of plastic to put people of the scent! That may seem insignificant to some - I appreciate that. But, then there is the leather. BMW will tell you that they use the finest hides to cover their seats, but I can tell you they are not. Just sit in a Porsche Cayenne or a Range Rover Sport, and you will see for yourself where BMW cut another corner. They look quite nice, and they will handle well no doubt, but they just miss the mark. My advice? If you can - spend a little bit more and buy a Porsche or a Range Rover Sport.[/quote] You can't compare the M3 against the cayenne or the sport - they are completely different animals which have different target markets. Having just come from a range rover, I agree they are better inside - more of an atmosphere, better leather, better stereo etc than a standard 3 series. The 3 is a cut above a 1 series, however, albeit a step below the 5 and I would hope the M3 has napa leather which is up their with the range rover rather than dakota. However, people who buy the likes of an M3 will put performance and sublime rwd handling ahead of the interior ambiance and the quality of the interior. I think the cayenne is an excellent car and the new sport is truly wonderful, but they just don't compete with the M3.

[quote=Kamelo]While many of your readers seem annoyed at the number of Land Rover or Jaguar stories that grace this website, which I do have a little sympathy with even as a Range Rover Sport (and Porsche) driver. However for me, with each new BMW communication, my once huge repect for the brand and company dilutes ever further. While I undestand that BMW aficinados will drule over the sports seats of either the M3 or M4, or indeed the perforamce figures, I cant help but see the huge - and I mean huge - corners that have been cut with those cars. Just look at the interior. These are £50,000+ cars, ladies and gentlemen. What you have is the same basic fascia architecture as in a £16,000 114i. The same cheap plastic button that grace the centre instrument panel. Horrible. Even if they use a different colour of plastic to put people of the scent! That may seem insignificant to some - I appreciate that. But, then there is the leather. BMW will tell you that they use the finest hides to cover their seats, but I can tell you they are not. Just sit in a Porsche Cayenne or a Range Rover Sport, and you will see for yourself where BMW cut another corner. They look quite nice, and they will handle well no doubt, but they just miss the mark. My advice? If you can - spend a little bit more and buy a Porsche or a Range Rover Sport.[/quote] I completely understand what you mean in regard to the dilution of the M brand, but ONLY in regard to doing things they said they would NEVER do. Such as forced induction for an M car as an example. What made the M3 of the past so special was the fact that it had an INSANELY sharp engine. The RPMs would climb and fall with no delay in relation to your foot. There aren't many cars that are like this - including a Porsche (or Range Rover for that matter, but I have no idea how a Range Rover can even be presented in this category of vehicle). The throttle response of the previous M3 cars was unparalleled, there aren't many cars with 8 throttle bodies or many cars with a V8 that screams to 8400 RPM. Yes, you can find a similarly responsive engine in a $200k Ferrari, but that's the point. This is why the M3 was so special; the engineering was SO MUCH better than everything else that you could buy and still drive every single day. Talking about the interior quality is a little ridiculous, especially when you are comparing an M3 to a Range Rover Sport. You realize the Range Rover is an SUV that has no relation to a sports car, right? The Range Rover Sport is built for people that want or need a large SUV - not to go off-roading like one would think, but to drive on city streets. To me, these cars make no sense; you are carrying around a ton of extra weight, so it doesn't stop well, it doesn't turn well, it basically doesn't do what a car is supposed to do well - drive. Yeah, it looks cute, and has a nice interior - and a nice powerful Jag engine, but it's not something you can compare in terms of driving dynamics to a Porsche or an M3; they are on two separate pages... Actually, they are in two different books. Point is, no one in their right mind is going to take your suggestion of buying a Range Rover when shopping for an M3 or similar. Yes, a Porsche would make sense to cross-shop (if we aren't talking about a Cayenne or some ridiculousness), but a Range Rover SUV? You are not understanding what an M3 is about - go drive one, seriously. It's nothing like anything you have driven obviously. Even compared to a Porsche 911 (991), the engine in the current gen M3 (S65B40) is so special, I guarantee you would be shocked and have a better understanding of what people mean when they say BMW is diluting the brand. It's not because the buttons are cheap, it's because we now have an M3 coming with a turbocharged engine - meaning it will have turbo lag; it won't be able to dethrottle like it should. It's also because almost every single one of their basic sedans and SUVs can be ordered with the "M" logo - for people like you who buy things just because of the perception or interior. It's sad - it's becoming a crappy world for actual drivers in this world because of things like this.