The old dictum that racing improves the breed has always been part of the creed of all motorsports enthusiasts. It is sometimes difficult to shower how technology trickles down from the likes of an Indy or an IMSA GTP car; but when the racing hardware is similar to what is sold for the street, an immediate benefit for the consumer is more believable. But how much of a racing sedan actually finds its way to a street machine? Usually, previous little; there are virtually no market pressures to apply racing technology. At best, a bit of the image rubs off.

Enter the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) and its rules for Group A racers. To qualify a car for Group A, a manufacturer must produce at least 5000 cars of that type in any given 12 month period. The cars must have a minimum of four seats. Minimum weight is related to engine displacement, but the cylinders may not be bored out more than 0.6mm to reach the displacement limit for that weight class; similarly for sleeving down engine too large for the desired weight class. Individual components may be modified, polished, lightened, machines, etched or heat treated, but not replaced by parts stemming from other sources. The original fuel injection system must be retained, but may be modified. The camshaft is free, as is its timing. Suspension pickup points must remain unchanged. Wheels and tires must be contained within the original bodywork; they aren’t allowed to stick out. Add-on aerodynamic aids beyond the car’s original roadgoing equipment are not allowed.

The result of all this is that cars not immediately associated with racing are used to good effect tin this predominantly European class. Victory Lane at the Nürburgring or Spa has in years past been occupied by the likes of Volvo and Rover; the 1985 Class 1 (over 2.5 litres) was won by Volvo, closely followed by Rover with MW a distant 3^rd. In Class 2 (1.6-2.5 litres) Alfa Romeo beat out BMW. In 1986 BMW won both Class 1 and 2, against competition from Mercedes-Benz (190E 2.3) and Rover Vitesse, what we used to call the 3500.

The manufacturers were beginning to get serious about touring cars, fielding teams both above and below board. For 1987 there would be several racing series for Group A cars, including the new World Touring Car Championship, coinciding with the European touring Car Championship except for four races in Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. Track wins meant more dealer sales. To achieve its own unfair advantage, BMW decided to enter Group A in a big way – by laying on a series of 5000 cars for the road designed solely to field similar cars on the track. A direct example of racing improving the breed or, more correctly, the right breeding making racing possible. The car is called the M3 and is based on the familiar 3-Series sports sedans. We compared this homologation special to its more civilized brother, the 325is, and the results are very interesting.

The M3 is a product of BMW Motorsport GmbH, but motorsport is not that group’s sole business. Other M products range from the Formula 1 engine and tuned street cars to designer clothes and “Motorsport” dead pedals in designer colors. The M3 is the first BMW since the M1 to be built for homologation.

The M3 at first glance looks like a typical café racer. But on this car, all the add-ons have a purpose. It’s all there because it needs to be there for racing. Remember, no spoiler on the road car means no spoiler on the racer, no add-on fender flares allowed. Not immediately noticeable is the greater rake to the backlight, achieved by moving its bottom edge back and fairing it all in with a plastic cap over the C-pillars and the rear edge of the roof. The trunk lid was raised by installing a plastic molding to replace the normal metal lid. Spoilers, skirts, fat tires and boxy fender flares capable of covering wheels up to 10in. wide (the largest allowed in its racing class) complete the zoomy kit. Despite, or perhaps better said,  because of all the add-ons, BMW claims a Cx of 0.33 versus 0.39 of the 325is.

Under the skin more modifications have been made. The front suspension, for example, has altered pickup points. The front hub carrier is different, giving the M3 more caster than the “civilian” versions for better high-speed stability and more steering feel. The power-assisted steering has been quickened. Lower control arms are aluminum instead of steel. The car has been lowered, and rising-rate springs have been installed at the rear. Spring, shock, anti-roll bar and rubber-bushing calibrations  have been changed. The brakes have been upgraded to those used on the 6 and 7-Series cars. A 25 percent limited-slip differential and ABS brakes are standard.

The shift lever of the US market car displays a conventional shift pattern, in contrast to the European model that has 1^st to the left and back. Gear ratios, too, are different. The US car is geared significantly lower in 1^st and 2^nd, for better acceleration. Ratios in the remaining gears are similar but not identical.

The engine bay is also heavily modified. The engine is surprisingly not the newer, lighter, aluminum M20 inline-6 used in other cars of the 3-Series, but rather the S14 inline-4, derived from the old M10 that also spawned the F1 powerplant. The M3 engine develops 192bhp at 6750rpm and 170lb-ft of torque at 4750rpm. In contrast to its 4-cylinder older brothers in the BW family, the M3’s engine has siamesed cylinder that also serve to stiffen the block. Why the step backward, to a four? The shorter, forged crankshaft of the four is stiffer, more resistant to torsional vibrations, and can be revved higher; the new six was designed for low weight and easy, cost-effective assembly and is therefore not as strong as the older design. Also no 4-valve head is readily available for the new six, while the old four had 4-valve heads as long ago as 1966.

Note that the new six is not to be confused with the bigger six used in the larger 5-, 6-, and 7-Series cars and the 4-valve M1 powerplant now used in the M635CSi and M5.

The M3 engine features two chain-driven cams and a cast-iron block, while the 325is has a single belt-driven cam. The M3 has far greater power potential than the new six and can rev higher in racing trim; BMW claims 10,000rpm is possible. The induction system uses a Bosch Motronic III and four throttle butterflies, one per cylinder, to reduce lag. A larger cast-aluminum oil pan, with windage tray and baffles, holds the greater quantity of oil required on the race track.

The interior of the car has the familiar, excellent BMW ergonomics. Subtle changes tell the driver that this is an extraordinary coupe; the speedo goes to 160mph, the tach to 8000 with a 7300rpm redline, and the fuel-economy gauge in the speedometer has been replaced by an oil-temperature gauge. Although the M3 is intended to provide a basis for a race car, it comes fully equipped with all manner of creature comforts, including sunroof, electric window lifts, central locking, sound system and air conditioning. About the only option is metallic paint. Automatic transmission is not available.

What shall we use as a yardstick? A good candidate is the BMW 325is, basically similar to the 325es tested in Road & Track, December 1986. The 325 family features the new 2.5 litre inline-6, which develops 168bhp at 5800rpm and 164lb-ft at 4300. Compare these figures to the M3; although power is less, torque is similar and is developed at lower revs. That’s significant, as we’ll soon see. In comparison to the M3, the gearing is taller all across the board, which should hurt the 325is in acceleration. The 325is has limited-slip differential, sport suspension with twin-tube shocks similar to the M3, sport seats, front air dam and small body-color rear lip spoiler and a number of detail changes compared with last year’s model.

Seat time. The first impression upon entering the M3 is how well everything is laid out for serious driving. The steering wheel fits the hands’ the gauges are where they should be. The grippy seats, among the best to be found anywhere, are adjustable for rake, reach, height and thigh support, thankfully without any electric motors. The ventilation system works well. Materials and workmanship in the interior are excellent.

On the road, the M3 exhibits a typical BMW trace of oversteer at the limit, useful when mastered. Cornering performance of the M3 is spirited, with little body lean. The car feels tossable. The pedals are easy to heel and toe, and the shifter has a somewhat notchy but accurate feel. Smooth, quick shifts are easily mastered. Steering is light but precise with nice feedback, allowing control of that oversteer. The suspension is not as hard as one might expect. The ABS brakes are, as always, simply wonderful, with a nice, hard pedal.

Now the down side. The car’s strongest asset, its engine, is also its largest liability. It is the logical choice for BMW’s motorsport activities, in view of its power potential; but under most driving conditions one is likely to encounter without need of a helmet, it is harsh, rough, buzzy, and boomy. There’s lots of valve-train noise thanks to the chain-driven overhead cams. There is a lack of power off the line, but BMW wisely chose high numberical ratios for the first two gears. The gearing is useful around town but long-legged if need be. The engine comes on the cam at 4500rpm or so.

By comparison, the 325is engine is quiet. Although not as noiseless as, say, the prime mover of the Acura Legend or the bigger BMWs, it is certainly one of the smoother engines around. A wee bit of valve-train noise can be heard, but it’s more of the well oiled machinery variety and not an annoyance to the enthusiast. One staffer summed it all up by asking, “Who needs the M3’s 4-cylinder peakiness with this car’s smooth, torquey, very tractable quick six?”

All of this is forgotten when the M3 is driven quickly on a mountain road. Preferably with the windows down. All of that booming and buzzing around town suddenly seems insignificant; in fact, it’s pleasant….and fun. This is what driving is all about. The engine, when revved hard, shoots the car from turn to turn; the four butterflies make it a happy responsive revver. The hard brake pedal and ABS allow braking deep into the turns, even in the face of guardrails and 500ft drops, far past the point where prudence would have one back off in lesser cars. The shifter and clutch are quick and precise. The steering is accurate; the driver is in control. Suddenly it all makes sense. This is as close as most owners will come to participatory motorsports and that is what this car was designed to do. Said one driver, “It seduces me despite my better judgment.”

And how does the 325is fare under such driving? Not at all badly. Although breeding will tell, and the 325 is not racebred, it does quiet well. It, too, is a joy to drive under such conditions; it, too, has the foolproof of barking and predictable handling. The difference is in degree; the brake pedal is a bit softer, the steering a mite less precise, the suspension a tad softer. Where the 325is shines is in all-around utility. The engine develops more torque at lower rpm than the M3, allowing spirited performance around town and away from stops, in spite of its gear-ratio handicap.

In other forms of performance driving, the M3 runs up to 60mph in 7.1 seconds and the quarter mile in 15.4 sec, 91.0mph. By comparison, the 325is does the same in 7.5secs and 15.7sec/88.5mph. On the skidpad, the M3 circulates at 0.82g, compared with the 325is’ 0.79; the cars run through the slalom at a commendable 64.7 and 64.6mph, respectively.

Which one to buy? The M3 is the choice for those who crave a car whose racing image is more than skin deep. This is a race car, make no mistake; every significant part on it is there to justify its presence on the racers. When pushed to its limits, it performs like a race car – fast and noisy.

For customers who don’t absolutely need the motorsport image, who may feel a bit self-conscious about the M3’s plastic body bits and spoilers, the more conservative 325 is a more logical choice. It’s far more civilized, and offers very nearly the same performance at a significantly lower cost.

Finally, after all this investment, did the M3 bring home the laurels for BMW? Two yeses, one no. The M3s won the German Touring Car Championship and the European Touring Car Championship quite handily. In the World Touring Car Championship, things were not quite so easy. The series was hotly contested by the BMW M3s and the Ford Sierra Cosworths, with the nod finally going to Ford in the final race of the season, at Mount Fuji. The series promises to be even more exciting next year. Without a doubt, BMW, will not take this lying down, no doubt developing even more tweaks over the winter, to improve its breed both on road and track.

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BMW relies heavily on motorsport to sell its sporting road cars. The Munich company is in competition come hell of high water, and touring car racing is its motor sporting priority.

A couple of years ago the BMW motor racing think-thank sat down to conjure up a supercar to take over from the 625CSi, then nearing the end of its competitive career.

The new weapon, it was decreed, should be non-turbo, reflecting the mainstream of BMW road-going products. The engineers looked at the rules and then at their options.

The road version of the M3 is a 200 horsepower fireball based broadly on the popular 3-Series. To drive one is the realise that the Germans have done more than anyone to bridge the performance gap between a street car and its track counterpart.

It incorporated bodywork which reduced lift on the front and rear axles while providing commendable streamlining. The coachwork conveniently offered ample room for the widest wheels and tyres. The suspension was sensibly designed to take full advantage of the touring car regulations.

The M3’s engine is basically four-sixths of the legendary M1 sportscar power unit. It’s a high-revving four of 2.3 litres capacity, with four valves per cylinder, twin cams, injection, and with a computerised engine management system controlling the variables. The BMW M3 is a spectacular road car. And it makes a predictably effortless transition to the circuit.

Frank Gardner’s JPS Team BMW M3s (five have been built; three remain with the team and the others have been sold to New Zealanders) have been developed independently of the West German works-associated Schnitzer and Linder equipes. Visits to Bathurst by Schnitzer cars in ‘85 and ‘86, and their performances against the black-and-gold cars, suggest the local machines lose nothing by comparison.

Gardner knows what he wants in a race car. Jim Richards’ championship winning M3 is immaculately presented, but more important, the cockpit is designed to offer the driver every assistance. Gardner is stickler for ergonomic perfection. Everything – seating, gauges, gearshift, pedals, footrest, switches – must be in a perfect relationship with the driver. Gardner follows the quite reasonable doctrine of keeping the centre of gravity as low as possible.

Therefore the bucket seat in Jim Richards’ l.h.d. M3 is set down low, but not so low that the driver must strain to see over the scuttle. It’s a splendid seat, too, supporting the lumbar area and firmly gripping hips and shoulders. The idea is that the driver stays put; the car slides. Keeping the man firmly located is a big rest for the left boot, and an impressive-looking $3000 five-point harness. This is my second sampling of an M3. I could detect minor differences; four months is quite a spell in the early development phase of a new race car like the M3.

The M3 is now on super fuel, and Gardner acknowledges a loss of eight to nine bhp. Richards says he hasn’t noticed any difference and lap times have not been hurt because of the drop in power has been offset by gains in other areas.

The M3 is now showing less of a tendency to hang the bum at fast corners like Mazda House. It is a brilliant handling motor car; turns in with just a hint of understeer, like the good book says. Then it hangs on, before making an easy switch to a barely discernable oversteer. It’s nimble, predictable, fun and well balanced. The steering is constant and doesn’t become heavy with the power off, like some.

It is indecent the way an atmospheric 2.3 litre cylinder engine gets 960 kils up and mobile like this one does. Mid-year goodies have helped hike the M3’s output to 310bhp, giving it a respectable weight-to-power ratio.

Flooring the throttle doesn’t bring kick-in-the-tail acceleration. It’s not a turbo and it’s not a V8.

If the little Bee Em has a weakness, it must be its modest low-down torque. The M3 does not blast out of slow corners. The engine’s flexibility does surprise, however. Given the twin cam’s engine spec, a narrow power band was expected. Not so. It’s not lacking performance low down in the rev range, hauling with enthusiasm from 5000rpm right through to the recommended maximum of 8500. It’ll go further – to 9000 – but Gardner says it goes off the boil after eight and a half.

All the JPS cars are left-hand drive, so the gearshift to the Getrag box is to the driver’s right hand. Unlike Perkins’ gearbox, the M3’s is spring-loaded to fall in the second-third plane.

Given that the M3 was designed and developed with motor racing in mind, it is interesting that it manages to retain many road car characteristics.

That’s rare. Many competition cars refuse to idle (like Perkins’ Holden) and object to running below 3500revs. Depressing their clutch pedals is a Herculean task. Their gearshifts feel like they are welded in place, and their steering is invariably heavy because of the broad tyreprints.

In contrast the M3 Group A car feels like a noisy, faster version of the M3 street machine. The engine fires at first go and idles without coaxing, and the gearchange is easy and positive.

But the brakes feel different. They require more pressure than in a well-boosted road version. Richards believes he has had a noticeable edge this season in braking, but M3s seem to go just a little deeper into corners. Being lightest of the leading contenders helps.

The M3 is a car that leaves the driver with a smile on his fact. It is civilised. Small wonder it’s invading the world’s race tracks at an alarming rate.

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Let’s put an end to the BMW-yuppie link. These days, all you have to do is whisper “BMW,” and everyone immediately thinks “yuppie.” Enough of the yups! That overpublicized group of consumers, who lust after Bimmers as they do any object perceived to confer status on its owners, could never fully appreciate the car you see on these pages. We don’t mean to say that the young urban professionals won’t love the new M3. After all, it’s got that famous badge on the hood. And you know, it’s the prestigious Eurosedan and everything. But will they realize that the M3 is the latest well-muscled, painstakingly crafted creation from BMW’s esteemed Motorsport department? “Nah, but it’ll sure look great in front of the condo.”

The M3 deserves better. This is not a car for yuppies. This is a car for us. In case you haven’t noticed, BMW’s US lineup has blossomed to include a dazzling array of leather-lined hot rods that beg to be flogged through the twisties and hammered on the superslabs. Gone are the anemic four-cylinder models that nearly ruined BMW’s image. Nearly extinct are the Bimmers reserved for social climbers.

The M3 is the most recent of the broad-shouldered BMW Motorsport models to reach our shores. For those not yet fluent in M-speak, the M-machines are limited-edition, high-performance versions of the 3-, 5-, and 6-Series sedans. For several years the M-cars were a treat reserved for European buyers, but since early this year they have been trickling into the hands of hungry American enthusiasts. The M5 and the M6 debuted stateside in February, and the M3 joined the brawny pair in June.

The M3 is available to enthusiasts because of the rules that govern FIA Group A racing. To qualify a car for Group A competition, its manufacturer must build a minimum of 5000 examples of it within twelve months. The rules also strictly limit the modifications that can be made for racing, so most of the performance hardware must be baked into the roadgoing cars. BMW Motorsport clearly knows the recipe for success in Group A road racing: after the fourth of seven European Touring Car Championship events this year, the M3 had already clinched the title.

The M3’s racing heritage is immediately apparent in its steroid-injected bodywork. With its aggressive assortment of air dams, body flares, and spoilers, the M3 will quicken the pulse of any boy (or girl) racer lucky enough to catch a glimpse of one. Most of the new pieces are made of steel, though the rocker panels, the trunk lid, the front air dam, and the rear wing are molded in plastic. The rake of the rear window has been altered for improved aerodynamics, and both it and the windshield are bonded flush with the surrounding bodywork. The net result of all these aero tweaks is a drag coefficient of 0.33, down substantially from the 325i’s 0.37Cd. Perhaps more important, no one will ever mistake the burly M3 for an ordinary 3-Series sedan.

The subskin make-over is equally impressive. Like its 3-Series siblings, the M3’s fully independent suspension has struts in front and semi-trailing arms at the rear, but the coil springs and the gas shocks have been revised and strengthened for race duty. The shorter springs drop the M3 about an inch lower than the 325i. In addition, the front anti-roll bar is attached to the struts rather than to the control arms, and a beefier anti-roll bar is fitted to the rear.

Formula 1 fans will think they’ve died and gone to Monaco the first time they lift the M3’s hood. Inside sits a normally aspirated, 2.3litre version of BMW’s brutal, turbocharged four-cylinder Grand Prix engine. This is the only remaining four banger in BMW’s US lineup, but it’s anything but a prestige-sapping weakling. Hardware enthusiasts have plenty to drool over here: four valves per cylinder, double overhead camshafts, an individual throttle for each cylinder, tuned intake and exhaust plumbing, and a new ML3 Bosch Motronic engine-management system. As further proof that this is no ordinary powerplant, its cam cover and air cleaner are emblazoned with the words “BMW M Power.”

Though the “M” stands for “Motorsport,” we think “Mucho Power” is more like it. The sixteen-valve four-cylinder turns out 192hp at a lofty 6750rpm and 170 pound-feet of torque at 4750. If you think those are remarkable figures for a 2.3litre, you’re right: the M3’s ferocious four boasts a higher output per litre than any other normally aspirated piston engine available in America.

What looks impressive on paper feels equally stirring on the road. When its tail is twisted, the 2857 pound M3 dashes to 60mph in 6.9 seconds and trips the quarter-mile lights in 15.2 seconds at 92mph. Top speed is an autobahn-tuned 141mph. That’s enough punch to blow off the Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 and stay neck and neck with the Porsche 944S. Best of all, the M3’s power delivery is wonderfully linear; it pulls willingly from its midrange all the way to its sizzling 7250rpm redline.

Those accustomed to the silky smoothness of BMW’s refined in-line sixes, however, may wince a bit when this engine starts to sing. It is, after all, a highly tuned, relatively large four-cylinder, so a little harshness is part of the bargain. BMW has softened the resonance considerably since we sampled an M3 on the autobahn a year ago, but this engine remains a howler. The noise is a fine, mechanical sound, especially when you’re near the very top of the tach, but it’s there whether you want it or not.

Most of the time, you won’t mind a little kibitzing from the engine compartment, because the M3 is designed for driving with brio. Pushed hard, the M3 comes into its own. The five-speed transmission is tightly geared for maximum go. The chassis is more than a match for the engine, responding swiftly and surely to orders from the helm. Powering through hard corners, the tail stays firmly planted, though there is enough predictable lift-throttle oversteer available to point you back toward your line when understeer begins to be a problem. The standard 205/55VR-15 Pirelli P600 tires don’t turn in as crisply as we’d like, but they do stick: the M3 squeals around the skidpad at an impressive 0.81g.

We had a chance to put in a handful of brisk laps around Connecticut’s challenging Lime Rock racetrack, and the M3 proved equal to its breeding. Few road cars can take to the track with such poise. The M3 leaps through the corners like a cat, it’s feisty engine spinning and spitting until you snatch another gear or the rev-limiter grabs it by the tail. Excellent controls help you keep the frenzy in check: the steering is supple and superbly accurate, the shifter has just the right amount of notchiness, and the massive disc brakes – vented in front and equipped with a standard anti-lock system – are always on duty, lap after lap. Our seat-of-the-pants admiration for the binders was confirmed by our fifth-wheel testing; the M3 clawed to a stop from 70mph in a mere 179 feet.

The M3 may be a thinly disguised race car, but its creature-comforts list would do most luxury sedans proud. Included are power windows, mirrors, and locks; a power sunroof; air conditioning; a premium AM/FM-stereo/cassette system; a three-spoke, leather-wrapped Motorsport steering wheel; and a nine-function trip computer. Everything is laid out in typically sensible BMW fashion, and the white-on-black analog gauges are among the most legible in the industry. In view of the M3’s sporting nature, an oil-temperature gauge has been substituted for the normal 3-Series layout’s fuel-economy display.

We have mixed feelings about the standard leather seats, however. They offer an adequate range of manual adjustment, and they’re dandy for spirited maneuvers. The problem is that they aren’t well designed for extended travel. Several staffers complained of a lack of lumbar support, and others suffered from pinched behinds after long drives. We’ll give these thrones an overall B. Passengers banished to the rear seats should be either short or masochistic.

All in all, we’re smitten by the M3. Our test car was weighed down by a $34,810 price tag – about what you’d pay for a 944S – but the Bavarian beast offers a lot in return. For that princely sum you get a stunningly distinctive design, a generous helping of luxury and quality, and the kind of cool, collected performance available only in German sports sedans.

Enthusiasts who find those attributes tantalizing should get in line immediately; BMW plans to export only 2400 M3s to the United States this year. The supply probably won’t be enough to meet the demand, but it will serve to remind enthusiasts that BMW is back in the performance car business.

Gee, what was that “y” word again?

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It wasn’t that long ago that BMW was suffering from a severe case of the blahs. Through the Bavarian auto maker continued to make impressive inroads on the American market, aficionados of the marquee slipped into reactions of indifference, a response that was due primarily to the firm’s lackluster powerplants combined with continued price hikes.

And then there was the distaste created when – despite the uninvolving level of performance delivered by the automobiles – the dreaded Kingdom of Yuppiedom embraced the blue-and-white propeller as the symbol of youthful status.

Those rather commonplace Bimmers from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s short-circuited acceptance by true BMW lovers, leading that group to wax nostalgic over such past gems as the 2002tii. Happily, though, adherents of automotive excitement can once again look to Munich for pulse-quickening sustenance.

BMW’s renewed vigor is led by a group of genuine sports machines, the M-Squad, which emanates from the same high-tech halls responsible for developing purpose-built race cars. So far, the M-series is comprised of three cars: the M6, M5 and M3.

Based on BMW’s 3-series coupe, the M3 exists because of a now-extinct race series, FIA’s 1987 Group A World Touring Car Championship. Homologation rules called for 5000units to be produced within a year, which has afforded a select group the opportunity to own a street car that was truly developed for the track. That old saw, “Racing improves the breed,” is nowhere more justified than on the M3.

The car’s competition genes are reflected in the aggressive bodywork. The wide fenders, front spoiler and rear wing, redesigned angel of the rear window, and side rockers provide more than just surface excitement. Aerodynamics is a key to racing success, and that science can also be utilized to refine passenger cars. The additions bring the coupe’s Cd down to a slippery 0.33, which translates to impressively quiet thrusts through the atmosphere and a solid grip on terra firma.

And grip is certainly the term needed to describe the M3’s handling characteristics. The basic suspension setup remains the familiar front strut/rear trailing arm arrangement, but he M3 has been lowered via shorter springs. It also features revised values for the shocks and springs, a large rear anti-roll bar and new attachment points for the front bar. Tires are 205/55VR-15 Pirelli P600 radials on 7JX15inch cross-spoke alloys, while superior braking discs, ventilated in front. As with all BMWs in the US, the M3 has standard ABS.

Especially un-standard, though, is the heart of this beauty, a 2.3 litre, 192 hp four cylinder powerplant. Using the virtually identical block as BMW’s Formula One engine and the same cylinder head design as the legendary M1, it also features twin chain-driven overhead cams, four valves per cylinder, free-flow exhaust manifold and twin exhaust tubes. Advanced engine management, called Motronic, measure such functions as air density, ambient temperature and engine temperature to keep it on the cutting edge of performance. As with most multi-valve engines, peak horsepower is found high up in the rev range – while the maximum torque of 170ft lbs is reached at a more accessible 4750rpm. Redline is reached at a lofty 7000rpm.

Acceleration is understandably swift, with 0 to 60mph accomplished in the area of 7 seconds, and the quarter-mile in roughly 15seconds at 90 plus mph. The M3 tops out around 140mph, and it’s all done with a raspy smoothness unknown to most four-cylinder engines. Power flows through a wonderful five speed sports gearbox that features close ratios ideally suited to the power curve. Gear selection is managed by a well-located quick-throw shift lever.

For all its high-performance aspirations, though, the M3 can be driven in the urban grind without a care. True, max power is usually out of reach during commuting, but find a stretch of open road and prepare for world-class fun.

As is the case with all quality automobiles from Germany, the cost of ownership is breathtakingly high – $34,000 at last count. The only option is metallic paint, and the list of standard equipment is right in line with the sumptuous level of comfort and convenience identified with current BMWs.

If it sounds as though we lust after such a car, be assured that we do. Few other cars can deliver the M3’s combination of sporty appearance, superb handling, smooth ride and responsive powerplant.

However, we also think of the M3 as a target vehicle for our Jetta GLI project. By the time we’re through modifying the Volkswagen, we think we can approach very closely the panache and motoring behaviour of the M3. Stay with us for the story of our success – or failure.

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Subtlety was out. After several false starts, there was clearly only one way to get BMW M3 Evolution number 475 off the line and down Millbrook’s mile straight at its scintillating best.

And that was sheer brute force. Whip the screaming four-cylinder up to within a few hundred revs of its 7000rpm red line, then simply dump the clutch. Howling their hearts out, the massive Pirelli P700s struggled for grip on the tarmac, the car’s rear end drifting almost in slow motion from side to side as it wrestled with that suddenly applied 220bhp. As grip slowly overcame slip, the engine dipped from 7000rpm to 5000rpm, then held momentarily before soaring again as the BMW speared down the track.

The awkward dog-leg shift out of first was forced through even before the wheels had stopped spinning. The revs dipped but the engine was slap bang on its torque peak and the M3’s charge undiminished. Through 60mph in just 6.7 seconds, then a straight pull back on the stick to third and peak torque once more.

Another of those awkward dog-leg shifts slammed through with no time to worry about the vagaries of the Getrag gearbox’s sloppy gate – but a quiet sigh of relief, nonetheless, that it had risen to the occasion well enough – and we were on to 100mph in a decimal over 18 seconds; the punch of acceleration still following forcibly through.

Brake hard and true as the end of the straight looms up, then swing round for the run back and another full-revs, clutch-dumping start. But don’t get the wrong impressions. The brutality of our test track treatment was not ignorant but calculated. And a tribute to the remarkable abilities of BMW’s little racer.

As any tester will tell you, the technique for standing starts in a powerful, rear-drive car is usually the simplest of all to master. Half revs, drop the clutch and you’ll have all the wheelspin you need for a fast getaway – too much quite often.

Not in the M3. At half revs, the big Pirellis stay glued like barnacles to the track surface. Try a thousand higher. Little better, the grip breaks, wheel spin for a year or two, then the revs fade as the tyres claw their footholds back. Try again – peak torque revs; that usually does it. But no, the wheels spin for a few yards more, grip again and the engine fades.

And so it has to be sheer force; peak power revs, and at last we get it away with the right balance of spin an traction to keep the engine boiling until momentum has picked up.

The M3 story we’ve discovered in this single exercise is as much about grip as it is about power. The Evolution version may have an extra 200bhp at its disposal, but it’s the prodigious grip that allows it to use the power with impunity. It is this grip, in the end, that impresses even more than the car’s performance.

‘Evolution’ is one of those motor sport terms little understood by anyone who is not both a member of Mensa and enjoys the FIA rule book as bedtime reading.

In layman’s language, having produced 5000 examples of a saloon car in order for it to be homologated as a Group A competition car, a manufacturer can then ‘evolve’ 500 improved versions from that original – stretching whatever the strictly defined guidelines for so doing might be as far as possible of course.

Needless to say, this process also creates an instant, limited edition collector’s piece – identified in the case of the M3 Evolution by a numbered plate riveted to the centre console.

The Sierra Cosworth, you will recall, evolved into the RS500 Cosworth via a series of nifty changes that opened up an Aladdin’s Cave of rich possibilities for the race-track. A massive new turbocharger and a second rail of fuel injectors (not even connected up on the road cars) were all ready to activate a whalloping power improvement by a simple engine management chip change, while a set of additional rear suspension pick-up points (again unused on the road version) allowed track tuners ample opportunity to re-work the semi-trailing rear end into something more sophisticated. And finally, revised spoilers reduced drag and increased rear end down-force.

It was, in truth, not so much evolution as revolution. By comparison, the M3 has been through a very modest development step. The engine is substantially altered, true enough; it has new pistons, increasing compression ratio from 10.5 to 11.0:1, a lighter flywheel, revised camshafts, a new air intake system and a re-chipped Motronic management unit. But such changes are much less significant in competition terms than Ford’s evolution changes for the Cosworth.

A naturally aspirated engine could not have its output radically increased as easily a Ford’s turbo-unit could, and the 300bhp-odd of the Group A M3 engine is only likely to rise by 20-30bhp as a result of these mods.

The road-tune engine gains just 20bhp, too, it 220bhp being developed at the same 6750rpm as the original. Torque, likewise, changes only a little from 177 to 181lb ft maximum at the same 4750rpm. To take advantage of the added power, the Evolution’s final drive has also been stretched slightly’ from 3.25 to 3.15:1.

The engine itself is, of course, the durable iron-blocked four-cylinder which has been at the core of so much of BMW’s competition work since it first saw lift in the BMW 1500 back in the 1960s.

In M3 guise it became a short-stroke high revving 2302cc unit, featuring a version of the twin-cam, four-valve-per-cylinder head used in the bigger, six-cylinder M-cars. Its Evolution development is identifiable at once from the vividly finished white cam cover and air collector, which sport the blue, mauve and red stripes of BMW Motorsport.

But, from a racing viewpoint, the significant alterations are those which the uninformed observer might well not spot. A delicate boot lip aerofoil beneath the existing spoiler improves downforce by between 10 and 15 percent, and 22lb of weight have also been pared from the rear of the car by substitution of a lighter boot lid, wing and bumper supports, as well as the use of thinner glass in the rear screen and rear side windows. Wheels and tyres are also larger than the original M3’s: 225/45ZR16 Pirellis on 7 ½ J alloy wheels, though these were already available as an option in place of the standard 205/55s and 7-inch rims.

In truth, the extra power is not really discernible on the road; it takes track testing to spot the differences – for they are small, being partially hidden by that slight rise in overall gearing, which is in slight rise in overall gearing, which is in turn offset by the lower profile tyres.

Confused? Well, in comparison with the standard car (if a machine like the M3 could ever be termed ‘standar’), the Evolution proved 0.2 seconds quicker to 60mph, a difference that had widened to just over two seconds by 100mph (18.1 against 20.5).

Top speeds are even harder to compare for we tested the original car abroad on the autobahn, where it reached 145.9mph. Around Millbrook’s oval, the Evolution averaged 144.8mph and was clearly losing some speed through tyre scrub. How much? That’s hard to say, but the original M3 has been ‘maxed’ round Millbrook by others at between 136 and 139mph, so BMW’s 152mph claim for the Evolution looks fair enough.

But so what if the Evolution is only marginally quicker, the M3 in either guise is a magnificent performer. The four-cylinder engine is a real race-bred screamer, though with enough docility to make it a perfectly mannered road unit, too.

It will pull smoothly from below 2000rpm, though it only starts to feel at all meaningful once it is nearing 4000. From here on – it flies! The real red meat of performance, though, is reserved for the final 2500rpm from just below 5000 to the rev limiter which cuts off an engine that is still in full flight at 7300rpm.

The rather boomy exhaust note of the short-stroke four turns into a throaty howl and that acceleration which had started to impress a thousand revs earlier just keeps striving on.

Such an eager, high-revving power unit makes road driving not only thrilling but remarkably fuss free, too. The M3 has power and torque reserves sufficient to make gearchanging less than a priority. On a country secondary, it will punch out if corners and swallow up the short straights between in third, while on quicker roads, fourth will carry it comfortably through fast sweepers and simply devour those longer straights.

But as we said at the beginning, given the chance, the Getrag box’s close, tight ratios can maintain the M3 at maximum momentum – when you’ll discover it’s a stunningly quick machine indeed. To well beyond 100mph acceleration just doesn’t falter and only as it nears maximum speed does the M3 begin to show off.

The response, too, is instantaneous. Shift up, bang the throttle hard down gain and the engine’s bite is immediate quite the opposite of a turbo’s slightly reluctant pick-up.

The gearbox isn’t the easiest to use – especially as one is shifting with the right or rather the wrong – hand. First is out in a dog-leg while a strongly spring-loaded gate separates second/third from fourth/fifth.

It’s one of those shifts that is all too easy to fumble over when driving casually – forget the spring loading and you often wrong-slot. But, driven in anger, everything comes good. And that, of course, is what counts. All this would be to no avail, though, without the M3’s terrific traction. You can slam the throttle down hard and early on the exit of a corner and those big Pirellis will just bite in and grip. There’s no trace of wheelspin or ___ twitching, just the instant launch of a Lynford Christie craving his starting blocks.

It’s a combination of traction and response that makes for sparkling motoring. You can drive the M3 Evolution like the racer it is: brake hard, turn in, lower on, blast out.

It appears just to flow through bends – the hallmark of greatness. There’s little body roll, good feel through the assisted steering and the chassis balance is impeccable. It will understeer turning in – quite noticeably if you turn in too late and too hard – but once the power is back on it simply squirts through the corner with impunity.

And the M3 is so easy to drive, too. Grippy leather-edged sports seats hold you tightly in place and the left-hand driving position is almost inch perfect. ____ one that inspires instant confidence; ____ pedals are properly spaced for heel-to-toe shifts and there’s a massive footrace down alongside the clutch. All-round visibility is good, too.

If there’s a fault to be found when driving the M3 (and fault finding hardly seems fair in a car that behaves so beautifully) then it’s that the steering struggles to keep up with the chassis’s ability. At 3.6 ___ between locks it is much higher geared than the standard 325’s awful 4.5 turns, but it is still not really quick enough. Flicking the car through a complex of tight bends demands rather too much work at the wheel and you miss the Cosworth’s steering quickness.

Brakes are more than up to the job, however. The car stops hard and true; there’s no weaving, and not a hint of fade. And on a dry surface, you’d have to be literally screeching to a halt before the characteristic pedal thump-back of ABS made itself known.

The inevitable consequence of such crisp, racer-like road manners is that the M3’s ride is hard – too hard for some, no doubt – but despite the stiffness and its associated wheel thump, even on rough country roads it remains stable and tidy, with little or no bump steer.

Our car, in fact, came with three-setting, drive-adjustable dampers – an electronic system developed by BMW in associated with Boge. The three settings (altered by a turn-wheel at the base of the gearstick) roughly correspond to Sporting, Normal M3 settings and Comfort – with the last automatically up-grading itself to Normal at higher speeds.

The differences between the settings are not as great as might be expected. In fact at first you’re barely aware of them. The M3’s springing is stiff, and the wide, low tyres noisy even on the softest setting. But try each setting for longer and differences do emerge in the way the car copes with various types of road imperfection. In Comfort, for instance, the car is less jolty at low speed, but go faster over and undulating road and you notice a slight floatiness that isn’t in tune with the hard demands made by fast motoring.

The Sport setting is harsher than the standard as well, and it can become quite unpleasantly jarring over had surfaces. Does it improve the overall handling balance? That’s hard to say; it would need a lengthy back to back test over a variety of roads to come to a firm conclusion. So perhaps at a costly £1388, it’s an option that doesn’t conclusively prove its worth. Not that the car is short of possible options; ours had another £2000 worth: electric sunroof (£692), headlamp cleaning (£288), computer (£337), electric front windows (£383) and heating control (£149), and anti-theft locks (£369).

As you can see, the M3 Evolution’s hefty £26,960 price tag pays for that purebred, competition pedigree and not for a great deal in the way of added luxury.

Naturally, you do still get superb build quality with the M3 Evolution – homologation special it might be, but this is still a BMW – but for the exclusive club of 40 British buyers who’ll take one home this year, the most important part of the car will probably be that aluminum plate with its limited edition serial number.

It’s a collector’s piece from the start, but certainly not one that should be tucked away for safe keeping. For this is the sports saloon brought to perfection: for sheer driving pleasure, you won’t beat it.

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Think of BMW and it is fairly natural to think of motorsport, but things have been a little fraught in Munich of late. BMW Motorsport GmbH is currently leaderless, following Wolfgang Peter Flohr’s resignation in late summer and although BMW still have an eye on the motorsport scene, the main company board seems set to await the sporting plans of Mercedes before committing themselves further.

Certainly, it seems, BMW have already turned their faces against rejoining the Grand Prix circus (their 1.5 litre/640bhp turbo helped Piquet’s Brabham to the world title in 1983), and that was largely responsible for Flohr’s resignation, and for some time now the main sporting interests have been production car based.

It seems that Munich’s decision makers see maintenance of upmarket status for the new 5- and 7-Series, where commercial success is assured, as of far higher priority than sporting achievement.

But although they are currently so non-committal about their own competition plans, BMW nonetheless continue to support the activities of diverse outside specialists – largely nowadays in pursuit of racing and rallying glory for their M3.

Schnitzer, for instance, based in Freilassing on the Austro-German border, won the first (and apparently last) World Touring Car Championship title last season, with M3 driver Roberto Ravaglia, yet they lost the Makes title to those wicked black Ford Sierra RS500s.

This year, Schnitzer (and many other, private concerns, including Alpina in the German championship) continue to chase wins for the M3.

But lacking sanction, so far, from the BWM board for the necessary 5000 run of a turbocharged car with which to fight Ford on more equal terms, outright racing success has been hard to obtain in Europe.

We are told that BMW Motorsport have developed a turbo M3 ‘Cosworth crusher’, but it is not scheduled to appear before the new sheet metal of the 3-Series itself, early in the 1990s. That time gap to the turbo M3 leaves the new Evolution M3 (with 10 percent of the original 5000 homologation figure uprated, or only 500 models produced) as the standard bearer for BMW Motorsport and their allies in racing. And even that car doesn’t fit into any plans for rallying, where Evolution models are banned.

Yet every cloud has its silver lining, and for the 18 month old Prodrive organization, based in Banbury, near Oxford, BMW’s indecision could not have come at a better time.

Now, instead of simply acting as ‘the biggest sales outlet, anywhere in the world, for BMW Motorsport cars and parts’, Prodrive are initiating their own engineering moves.

These have already included the design, development and manufacture of a non-synchromesh six-speed gearbox – masterminded by former Williams and Benetton transmission consultant John Piper, and brought to fruition in the space of only six months.

It is typical of Prodrive’s dynamic approach; talking, for instance, for more than the allotted 10 minutes at a time to Prodrive boss David Richards its bound to leave even the most determined Yuppie deflated.5.5 million.

Here is a man who had the courage and the foresight to sit as co-driver with 1981 World Champion rally driver Ari Vatanen, from his British debut onward, but whose retirement from world class rally co-driving actually resulted in an increase in achievement.

New, 36 year old Richards is winning his championship solo, and commuting in his own helicopter, but when he set up Prodrive, it had neither its present BMW British racing bias nor its Banbury home.

In the beginning, Prodrive ran Rothmans-backed Porches and Metro 6R3s from a base at Silverstone, for drivers such as the late Henri Toivonen and multiple British rally champion, Jimmy McRae.

Before long, Prodrive managed to ‘push’ BMW into allowing them to rally the 3-Series and with that they expanded so rapidly that they very soon had to move to a new, bigger base. They found it in Banbury, in January 1988. The move included 32 personnel and Perodrive now number ‘more than 58, with 75 expected by March 1989′, says David Richards briskly.

Naturally enough, turnover has boomed and the forward projections will doubtless excite interest in the City, too. The founder and majority equity holder revealed, ‘in 1987 our turnover was £1.7 million. 1988 that figure will be around £5.5 million. We expect £12.5 million next year and £20 million annually by 1990.

‘Such growth takes account of the interesting business opportunities created by our competition contacts to increase our engineering business, with a move into retail dealerships also likely. In fact, I think pure competition income will account for no more than £3.5 million of that 1990 total.’

So, who controls Prodrive apart from managing director and majority equity holder Richards? Well, his co-directors include former Rothmans sports executive Ian Parry (sales); ex-Ford competitions administrator Charles Reynolds (competitions); David Lapworth (engineering); former Rolls-Royce employee Dave Campion (technical services) and John Bailey (finance). The engineering division sees equity shares for Mr.Lapworth and designer John Piper, the latter a cheerful young engineer who has worked with Nigel Manshell in both Formula 1 and Formula 3.

The acceptance of BMW’s four-wheel drive 325iX for international competition also stemmed mainly from a Prodrive initiative, but that was almost nothing compared to the idea of taking the M3 into internationally rallying.

David Richards recalls how it happened; ‘We really forced them into it, step by step. BMW were not keen at first, but we have always had fantastic support from the national sales companies, particularly from BMW France. They are the best export market for the M3.’

Thus it was perhaps particularly fitting that it was on the French island of Corsica, last year, that Prodrive engineered BMW’s first world championship rally win.

Such success had its own commercial reward for Prodrive. ‘We built 28 of the 120 competition M3 kits released by Motorsport’, reveals Richards. ‘And besides building the front-running M3s for championship honours in France, Belgium, Italy and the European series that Patrick Snyers presently leads, Prodrive have built up M3s, or materially assisted in BMW’s motorsport programmes, in Holland, Spain, Switzerland, Greece and Norway.’

Most of those M3 activities were concerned with rallying, but Prodrive have not ignored the M3’s racing raison d’etre.

The two-car M3 team which they run under Mobil r/BMW Finance colours, for Frank Sytner, will be familiar to many British TB viewers now that saloon car racing gets regular exposure. At the time of writing, Sytner is just, but only just, leading the British Championship – from Any Rouse in the inevitable Sierra RS500.

Prodrive have also contested some European races this season. The six-speed gearbox, as homologated on 1 July, survived 23 hours of the Spa 24 hour race at the end of the same month (around eight of the European Touring Car Championship), only to be let down in the end by engine failure.

Our test cars were two of the three Prodrive Evolution M3s which are contesting the UK Series; the much-repaired Mike Smith machine and the series-leading M3 of BMW and Alpina UK retailer Frank Sytner.

The differences between the first M3 and the Evolution model were not so radical as to force new cars upon Prodrive. They share the new front and rear spoiler, and lightweight bootlid and rear glass, but it is worth noting that neither power nor weight are notably changed in Group A racing guise.

Prodrive’s senior race technician, Peter Holley, explained: “The road car changed do not affect the racing systems that we use, so power remains around 300bhp for a really cracking example, with 285 to 295bhp the norm.” And race engineer David Potter added: “The quality of the panels used and the slight reduction in glass thickness don’t drop weight appreciably below 1000kg (2200lb), which is still above the M3’s class minimum of 940kg (2068lb).

In Group A racing, in fact, M3 power is augmented by little more than 35 percent, even in the best examples, which is considerably less than any team running turbo cars would expect. This shortfall leads to inevitable discontent, particularly when the M3’s arch-rival the Sierra RS500 can be transformed from 224bhp in road form to a widely available 440 to 480bhp in competition guise.

Three times this season, the disparity between the two has led the German authorities to restricting the Ford’s power output by means of air restrictors, while allowing the BMW’s up to 330bhp with the use of single-side fuel injection. The British rules, by comparison, remain unfettered, save in the less prestigious (Uniroyal/Monroe) ‘production’ series, but David Richards is among those who support rule changes to make the racing closer between BMW and Ford in 1989.

On the M3 rally engines, replacement camshafts help bring the torque peak down to a reasonable 5500rpm, but on the racing engines the 199lb ft peak doesn’t occur until 7000rpm – which explains the need for close gear ratios and plenty of them for circuit success.

The conventional five-speed synchromesh Getrag gearbox has ratios (from first to fifth) of 2.337, 1.68, 1.358, 1.150 and 1.000:1. The ‘Prodrive six’ offers ratios of 2.449, 1.913, 1.579, 1.332, 1.148 and 1.000:1. That means a more appropriate ratio for most race track cornering problems.

Peak power is at 8200rpm, but the Bosch Motronic chip in the digital engine management system of Frank Sytner’s car allows a maximum of 8800rpm. On Britain’s short tracks that will allow Mr. Sytner to brush 150mph, but the wide choice of axle ratios is claimed to yield up to 175mph on longer circuits. German magazines have electronically timed the M3 from 0-60mph in some 4.5 seconds and there is no reason to think the Prodrive examples would be any slower.

The cabin is functional in the business tradition, but far from stark. The door panels are trimmed and the predominantly white colour scheme extends to the steel scaffolding which Matter sell as a roll cage.

As you would hope in a world that is going to be subjected to the considerable g-forces generated by 9-inch wide Pirelli slicks, the driving position bolts you into the car as an integral component, located by six-point Sabelts and the clinging embrace of an ultra light Sparco racing seat, while braced by a massive aluminum foot rest. There is little chance that your feet will slip off either a foot pedal or the floor, since anti-slip grids are liberally applied.

Instrumentation is extensive, with six dials, and functions such as ignition, lightning and fuel pumps are supported by nine, fused push buttons over the transmission tunnel. The Stack rev-counter is a particularly memorable device, for it recalls the maximum rpm used, via two recall commands, and can be plugged into a micro-processor analyser to spew forth engine speed readings at regular circuit intervals.

The four-cylinder 2332cc engine (slightly overbored from standard, at 94.0mmX84.0mm) literally starts on the push of a button. It pays not to touch the throttle pedal, as the engine management automatically accelerates the engine beyond the 1150rpm tickover to produce perfect starts – helped by a Pulsar battery transplanted from a helicopter.

You may study the six-speed plus reverse gearshift pattern apprehensively, but such fears are quickly dispelled by the instant selection of first. There is the inevitable clonk of a generously dimensioned dog-gear box without synchromesh, and the fifth to fourth downshift takes some finding, yet the deft speed with which each shift can be made thereafter will be familiar only to motorcyclists and formula car-drivers.

‘You do have to be brave and just slam the changes through confidently,’ admits designer John Piper, ‘but we are in the process of designing a “Mk2″ unit that will be even better, because the lever will be shortened and a degree of compliance built in to reduce the shocks fed back to the driver in long rallies or 24 hour races.’

Naturally, the engine does not like full throttle in racing trim while the Stack tacho’s needle is in amongst the small numbers below 4000rpm. Even then, you are better waiting to 5000rpm for a rude response. In practice, 7000 to 8800rpm is the natural habitat of this tough, 2.3litre, 16-valve screamer.

For our test, the British Championship silencing was fitted, below 5000rpm the noise emitted really wasn’t much more than that experienced on a sporting road car. But above 5000 there is a definite increase in interest and from 7000 onward the whole unit seems to pull its short stroke act together and soar towards the rev limiter in each gear.

‘You hardly ever hang onto a gear for more than a couple of seconds.’ says Sytner with enthusiasm. You share his glee when the tachometer blinks by barely 400-500rpm on each marvellous change, and the engine resumes its supercar standard of thrust.

As we’ve already noted, the M3, even in Evolution guise, does not have much power by the standards of the ‘boosty boys’ who utilise turbocharging in their Sierras and Nissans, but it transmits every drop to the pavement and preserves every precious decimal point of cornering speed.

The sheer grip available is hard to comprehend in something that bears such a close relationship to a road car, but the steering is not monumentally heavy on the move, even without the standard power steering.

Basically, you point the M3 at a corner under full throttle and it either screams through….or not. In the latter case, just radio the experience Mike Smith for further low level landing advice!

Ask Frank Sytner to list the virtues of his white Evolution steed, and he will cite in comparison to the original car, ‘the car does feel better. It has more aerodynamic bite and it just turns in terribly well.’

We later learned that part of the reason for this lies in the use of 16inch diameter front wheels and 17inch rears. They’re BBS at present, but likely to be Speedline in the near future.

Next, stir in a thoroughly sorted suspension system (based on newly fabricated parts for the MacPherson front struts, and vastly stronger rest trailing arms). Then deploy 1000lb/in front springs (about eight times stiffer than those of a sports hatch!) and 675lb/in rears. In addition, the system is swiftly adjustable in most respects, and has a number of alternative leverage points for the 27mm front anti-roll bar and 20mm rear, to transform roll stiffness.

Of the M3 in general, Frank feels its winning qualities are ‘firstly, robustness – it never feels that you should drive it anything but absolutely flat out, and there are no worries about boost levels, or any of that nonsense. It will run to nearly 9000rpm for 24 racing hours. Secondly, the handling gives it the capability of qualifying in amongst Sierras with nearly twice the power. They brake like hell where we might dab and have to go flat out.’

‘You have to work really hard in this car for a lap time, but it’s supremely satisfying when you succeed.’

‘And thirdly, the brakes are excellent. At 300bhp you try not give speed away, but when you do need them they are brilliant. Not as good as they have been, because the authorities made us lose an inch of rubber width this season, but still fine.’

Whatever the treat from the Sierras, it’s still likely that the cars we drove represent the formula that will ultimately win this year’s British Saloon Car Champship. It was an exhilarating privilege, and maybe there’s a lesson beyond racing – that there must be a future for six speeds in the next generation of roadgoing 16-valve performers.

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It’s the type of car that gets you in trouble with the law…it is so responsive that you want to drive it hard. This car has some very good natural abilities in its production state. You can feel the road. You know it’s there. The speaker is Willy Lewis. The car is the BMW M3. In our unending quest to find out what cars will do when pushed to the limit, we enlisted the help of Lewis, a stock M3, Ray Korntan’s firehawk racing M3, arid Watkies Glen International Raceway. It took more than a little effort to pull all of those things together at the same time, but after several changes and many promises “not to do anything silly,” we found ourselves on a fine summer day at the legendary road course.

Watkins Glen is where it all began. If you are into sports car racing, then you know that the tiny up state town everyone calls The Glen gave birth to the Sports Car Club of America, to sports car (read foreign car) racing in America, and much of what we hold sacred about racing today.

After some very hard times, The Glen is back in a big way. The course is beautiful, and a perfect place for us to see just how much racing can improve the breed.

The folks at BMW made a street M3 available to us on the condition that we not completely destroy it in our little test. The bright red example they provided had 9000 miles on the clock and one of the strange maladies we have ever encountered in a car: a loose windscreen. The problem would manifest itself at speeds above 60mph by generating a strange hiss from the area of the dash.

At first it seemed to be coming from the radio, but persisted even with the radio turned off. The cure was discovered long before the cause. By cracking one of the side windows, the noise would go away. Lewis was the one who finally discovered the cause of the noise and wondered aloud if the entire windshield might not pop out at some point. We tried not to think about that for the rest of the test.

In all other ways, the street machine was just what any citizen can buy at the local BMW dealer for $35,000 cash money. For a complete road test of the M3, refer to the December 1987 issue of SCI. We will just touch on the salient points here. The car is the spear carrier of BMW’s attempt to get back to the performance market it abandoned in the seventies in favour of the Yuppie market. It is the 1988 version of the 2002tii. That is to say, a state of the art, nearly uncompromising road car that is as fun to drive as any sedan in the world. It will do virtually anything the driver asks of it with ease and restraint. It encourages its driver to push his own limits, but that driver will likely never approach the M3’s. For a capsule summary, refer to Willy Lewis’ quote at the beginning of this story.

Mr. Lewis knows about testing cars that are quite similar and finding the subtle difference. He probably holds more different single-marque titles than anyone around. In 1983, he won the Renault Cup against a zillion other folks in identical RS (Le Car) Renaults and the following year won the inaugural season of SCCA’s Sports Renault. In 1985 he missed repeating that championship by one point. For 1986 he proved that he could also drive formula cars by winning the Barber-Saab Championship. In all of these series, he proved he was the best when it came to running identical cars.

For this season Lewis and his sponsor (more about that in a minute) wanted to do a BMW program in the Firehawk (IMSA showroom stock) series. And if you are going to do a BMW program in showroom stock, who better to hook up with than Ray Korman.

Now understand, Lewis’ deal was not the usual beer or tire or oil or tobacco deal. Nope, ole Willy got himself linked up with an art gallery. Yeah, you know, like Picasso or Rembrandt or Da Vinci. Well, in this case, the connection happened to be Van Gogh. To be more precise, it was the Van Gogh painting Les Irisis, which sold last year for a record $53 million. That painting belonged to a friend of Willy’s, one John Payson. Payson owns galleries in Maine, Manhattan, and Florida. His business is selling works of art, and he felt that one way to reach an affluent audience of potential customers was through racing. While beer and oil and tire companies might want their name on a car, Payson had something more elaborate in mind. He commissioned one of the artists he deals with to design and execute an original graphic on the car. Then he also had a second car built and painted just for display in his galleries and at other shows. (For the very dedicated and observant BMW types in the crowd, we will tell you that the show car is not an M3, but a 325 that Korman’s shop converted to look like an M3. It is still a 325 under the skin.)

“The race car is conceptual art,” explained Payson. “It is art for the moment. They display car and the painting that goes with it (they are artistically one unit) are permanent art. And they are for sale as art objects if anyone is interested.”

If you have to ask, then you can’t….etc. Anyway, the going price is about $100,000. Remember, you are getting one of a kind here.

The artist who did the design, Gary Buch, says that the design is, “a very abstract representation of a tree over the car or a shadow of a tree over the car or a shadow of a tree with the leaves being ripped off the back.”

That’s very nice, Gary, but let’s leave the art to Connoisseur and get back to racing.

The main secret of the M3’s success, of course, is the 2.3 litre 16 valve four banger that pumps out 190+bhp in standard trim. That moves the 2700 pound car through sub-16 quarters and 7.5 second 0 to 60sprints. Those numbers are not all that impressive, but then Americans are the only people in the world who think standing start times are important. What the M3 does as well as nay car we have tested is respond. Between 40 and 90 on most roads, the M3 in standard trim will do its driver proud against any competition.

All of those qualities, unfortunately, add up to some serious problems for the M3 as a showroom stock race car. With the M3, BMW has done many of the things that racers would normally do to street cars to make them into showroom stock racers. The attention to detail, the assembly, the choice of springs and shocks, and a hundred other things have already been optimized by BMW. That means that preparing an M3 for showroom stock racing yields less improvement than with most cars.

Not to worry, however. If you are going to prepare and race BMWs, there is just one place to turn.

Ray Korman probably knows more about setting up and racing BMW showroom stock cars than anyone in the country. In 1986 he built and raced the only Sports class car to ever win overall at an IMSA Firehawk race. His 325e BMWs were the scourge of the Firehawk series whenever they raced. Korman cars won half the races and the series championship for BMW.

Korman began learning his BMW magic by working on an 1800ti at tracks in Bangkok, Singapore, Macau, and Kuala Lumpur when he was stationed in the Far East by the US Air Force. He also ran BMW’s with numbers like 2002tii, 320i and 325e. By the time he came face to face with M3 last year, he knew that he had his work cut out.

“The photo of the M3 that you’ve seen in the magazine ads where it’s lifting a front wheel shows you our problem. At speed in certain types of corners, the front would lift and air would get under the car. The car would understeer right off the track. We would have to go into the corner and then lift to make the front bite. Since the cars behind us didn’t know we were going to lift, we got hit more than once,” says Korman.

“Also, the brakes got very hot. They would work very well, but build up to 1600 to 1800 degrees. Last year we did more with brakes than in all the previous 20 years I have been running BMWs. The brakes were an utter disaster on street courses. John (Andretti) virtually destroyed a car when he hit the wall at Columbus.”

So Ray and his people went to work on the suspension and the brakes. They spent a lot of time getting the proper sway bars and shocks. Both are adjustable: the bars are from Korman, the shocks from Bilstein. The IMSA rules allow negative camber, which is added to M3 by cutting slots in the tops of the mounting towers to lean the shocks inwards. Those changes were just hard work and lots of time.

“The brakes,” says Ray, “are a super secret.”

He will be happy to sell you all of his special pads you’d like to have, but they are outrageously expensive because to make them he has to buy new BMW pads and scrape all of the pad off the backing plate and then mold the new material onto those plates. That means you have the price of a set of pads before he ever begins working his magic.

To make them work right, however, you will need a set of special wheels (at nearly $300 a pop), and guess where you get the wheels? Right again, BMW fans. Korman had the wheels specially made in Japan and had to buy lots of them, so he has a good supply. They are built to extract air from around the brakes so that more cooling air can be pulled from the back. After all, 1600 degrees is not the optimal temperature for brakes running a 24 hour race.

“We don’t get any major horsepower improvements out of the engine. BMW builds these cars very carefully. But we go through the engine and make certain that it is right,” Korman says.

“You don’t get to make many changes, so you have to be certain that you are getting 100percent out of the changes you do make.”

Ray says that if an M3 is brought to his shop, it will cost something like $9000 in parts and $9000 in labour to create a competitive Firehawk M3. Oh, and be sure the radio is wired completely separately. “The first time we went out (with the radio installed) and keyed the mike, the engine quit.”

So what does all this R&D and test time and money yield?

A car that is surprisingly like the street car. We have tested several showroom stock cars against their street-going counterparts and found most of them to be completely different beast than their stock brethem. The Korman M3 is clearly a racing car, but most of the personality that BMW built into the street machine is still there.

As we cruised the track at Watkins Glen, the most noticeable difference between the two cars was the noise. The Firehawk car has no muffler or catalytic converter, so it tends to be loud, as in 16 valve 200-plus horsepower loud.

Lewis puts it like this: “The street car seems much less powerful. When you are doing 6500 in the Firehawk car, you can really hear it. The street car is much quieter. Both cars are flat off the line unless you want to use the clutch to come up. The engine doesn’t come on until about 3500, then you start feeling the powerband. At 4500 you can ask the throttle to do anything it will. But the cars are more alike than different.”

As Willy pushed a bit, it was clear that the street car was outclassed. It did not have the cornering power at the limits of the Firehawk machine. At first, both cars could stop about equally, but that did not last.

“The street car is so good that you almost forget that it is not a race car. As I came down through the horseshoe, I thought I was driving the race car, until we got right near the limit. Then it feels like you have lots of understeer, but what really happens is the front end starts to come up. It feels like you could throw the back end out, but if you apply power, it just goes strait. You have to fight your instincts, lift, and let the front end bite again.

“Now, on a loose surface that problem doesn’t come up. Probably because you don’t have such high speeds. We went out on a gravel road, and it was easy to induce all the oversteer we wanted. You can really drive the car with the throttle if you want to, especially on gravel.

“The M3 has all the brakes that anyone would ever need on the road, but on track I could feel them starting to beg for mercy. It’s a credit to Ray that he has overcome these shortcomings for the race car. The only thing the Firehawk M3 lacks is cubic inches. To go as fast as Camaros, you have to draft them on the straights. We used to eat them in the corners, but they have new suspensions and brakes and our work is even harder.”

A good time on the long course at The Glen for the street car was a 2:25 (83mph), “a real scary 25. The front end starts to lift and the brakes start to fade by the end of the second or third corner,” says Lewis. “It wouldn’t make a difference for one or two laps, but after that…”

Two years ago, a 2:25 would have put the M3 near the pole, but the times they are a-changing. In serious practice and qualifying, the Firehawk M3 turns laps as quick as 2:20.

“Remember what we are doing here,” said Lewis. “We are pressing these cars right to the absolute limits. On an expressway, 100mph is white knuckle time, and we are going a lot faster than that here. I remember at Sebring I had to brace the steering wheel with my knee to plug in my helmet radio. I happened to look down at the speedometer and we were going 122mph. And there we are saying that a street car exhibits some understeer as 85 under severe loads in a tight corner at the very limits. This is a very good street car. Believe me, I would much rather drive it every day than I would the race car. The M3 is a car that is easy for good drivers to fall in love with.”

The conditions of our test precluded a wheel-to-wheel race, which would have proven very little anyway. After all, the street car had neither a roll cage or shaved tires, and its full exhaust system was just another of its many performance handicaps.

Even in the short stretches of The Glen where the two cars were side by side, the Firehawk car was clearly better. It stuck better, leaned less, tracked more certainly, and had more power at al speeds. It could go into the corners deeper, hold a tighter line, and carry more speed into the straight.

But I have to say that when it came time to go home, I’m glad that the car I drove the 250miles back to BMW was the little red M3. The only thing I avoided all the way back was the expressway. If you are going to drive this little car, find an endless trip of twisty asphalt and keep the revs up high.

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Adopting Group A rules for rallying as well as racing was meant to close the gap between road and competition machines. That it has done, not by producing slow race and rally cars, but by bringing a new generation of affordable 150mph road-rockets. While last year’s Group A hatchbacks were virtually as quick over rally stages as the previous Group B monsters, ordinary customers have been able to buy a car capable of more than doubling the speed limit which cost less on introduction than £17,000.

We have been used to the idea of homologation specials in runs of 400 or 200, from Lancia Stratos to Metro 6R4, but, the FIA reasoned, surely a minimum production of 5000 would preclude out-and-our hot-rods being built?

Five years ago, perhaps, no manufacturer would have dared to propose such a car for sale, but with the apparently insatiable demand of the enthusiasts for more and more performance, we now have two near-150mph machines which fall easily within the executive car price bracket. And both are saloons with rooms for four or five people. Can a car such as this be a useable proposition?

Undoubtedly yes. Both the Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 and BMW’s M3 tested here offer blistering acceleration, outstanding grip, and razor-sharp responses in a packet which will stay cool and untroubled even in traffic queues. And at just under £20,000 for the Ford and £23,550 for the M3 they both offer performance value well above almost anything else.

To a lover of two-seater Italian exotics, it hardly seems right that these two should clothe the impulsion of a Ferrari in a family body, but it shows that the “sportscar label gets more and more blurred year by year.

Ford’s racer has become notorious for getting its owners into trouble, and has supplanted the Capri as the first choice for the light-fingered. Drivers have been caught out by its explosive performance, and more than one has caught fire, always a hazard with turbocharged cars. Yet this has only helped to give it a rather wicked image which does no harm at all to sales of such small-run devices. And having paved the way to the circuits with 5000 204bhp cars, the next step was to take advantage of the FIA ruling which allows a further 10% of this number to be built with improvements – the evolution process.

Even 5000 is a tiny number to an international giant like Ford, so the evolution cars, developed by Ford’s Special Vehicle Engineering department at Dunton, were assembled instead by Coventry-based Aston Martin Tickford.

Starting with fully-built Cosworths, Tickford’s team removed the spoilers fore and aft, modifying the front airdam to gulp more cool air where spotlamps once sat, and then fitting a new boot-top spoiler to complement the extra lip on the tailplane.

The 204bhp motors were removed and new 224bhp units from Cosworth replaced them, boasting larger turbo, revised inlet tracts and a new full-width intercooler which has to be mounted behind the radiator instead of above as before. Extra heat-shielding also appeared, and new location holes allowed for minor changes to the geometry of the rear trailing arms.

All 500 cars were ready for their homologation inspection by the end of July last year, and the Eggenberger team took the new car to a 1-2 victory immediately afterwards at Brno.

There is, however, one substantial difference between road car and racer which helps to explain where more than 400bhp of works horsepower comes from: a secondary injection system is built into the RS500 engine. Inactive on road cars, the system is called into play in race-prepared cars through a different microchip, and allows the engine to swallow an even bigger fuel/air charge on each intake stroke.

With most of the private team cars, converted up to RS500 spec, it has become difficult for anyone else to snatch overall victory from Ford, and indeed the world teams title eventually fell to the Sierras, after some wrangling over legality. But BMW’s successes with the M3 have been if anything more consistent and wide-ranging: Roberto Ravaglia is WTC champion driver, the less prestigious ETC crown fell to an M3, and the car has dominated various national Group A and Group N series.

For BMW, too, there was a sensational dispute over the legality of its cars: at the WTC opener in Monza, M3s finished 1-2-3-4-5-6-8, only to be disqualified when the scrutineers questioned the plastic boot and roof panels. Once that drama was settled, the Munich evolution car had arrived: enlarged from 2302cc to 2332cc, 12:1cr, improved breathing and an extra cooling slot in the front spoiler, pushing the total over 300bhp.

While Ford was still undecided whether to back its Cosworth or XR4X4 Sierra for rallying, its German rival had been developed from the beginning to do both jobs, and proved this with the victory in Corsica of a car privately prepared in Britain by Dave Richards’ Prodrive team.

If there is a benefit from the elimination of the specialist Group B rallycars, it must be that cars such as the Sierra Cosworth and the BMW M3 have a chance to shine both on tarmac and on dirt roads – broadening their useful return to the factory which has invested in their development, while still imparting an air of glamour to the more mundane cars in the High Street which they resemble.

That resemblance can be stretched, of course, and while Ford has retained the two-down Sierra shell essentially unaltered under a layer of air-smoothing dressing, BMW has made some radical changes to the 3-series shape.

All-new wing panels incorporate smoothly flared arches which will swallow tyres of up to 10in width (the maximum allowed in this 2500cc class), but even more striking are the changes to the rear window area. To help fill in the low-pressure patch behind the relatively steep window of the standard saloon, the whole glass is lifted from the bottom edge, giving it a flatter rake. A new 1 1/2 in higher plastic bootlid carrying a tall spoiler fairs the new panels into the rest of the tail, and the result is less lift and better stability.

Careful use of GRP and impact-absorbing foam means that the bumper/airdam at each end fulfills all the various impact regulations, even those in the USA, and simple flared sills below the doors tidy up the airflow between the wheels, giving the M3s a drag-coefficient of 0.33 despite its extra width.

Powering this taut little saloon is not the six-cylinder one might expect but a slanted 2.3 litre four related to the Formula Two and Formula One engines. This choice was based on the greater strength of a shorter crankshaft, allowing higher sustained engine revs with all the advantages that implies for racing. Valvegear closely follows the pattern of the six-cylinder M1 engine which continues in the other two M-cars, the M635 and M5, the twin cams being driven by a duplex chain, and the spark plug sitting centrally between the four valves.

Although this four-cylinder block has been in production for many years, the M3’s 2.3 litres capacity means that it now has the biggest bore possible. As a result the two centre cylinder-liners have to be cast as a pair like those on BMW’s big six-cylinder engines, a principle which helps stiffen the whole unit in preparation for racing revs of 9000 and more. A complex sump and an oil cooler ensure that the oil can do its job under racetrack extremes.

BMW’s Motronic injection system fuels the engine and is linked on the home marker to the compulsory catalytic converter, which knocks 5bhp off the unrestricted output; down to 195bhp. Torque shows the same small drop from 177lb ft in British specification to 170 at home. Yet the clean-breathing version still breaks the 7-second barrier for the 0-60mph dash, and any loss in top speed is marginal – 143 as opposed to 146mph. Should an environmentally-concerned UK buyer want to convert his car, the catalyst may be added later with a simple adjustment of the electronics.

A close-ratio five-speed Getrag gearbox with first down to the left leaves the top four gears in simple H, while the clutch has its lining bonded as well as riveted in place. For maximum grip a 25% limited-slip differential is standard equipment.

To give the M3 its arrow-like stability and instant response the chassis alterations have been extensive. Castor is three times the standard amount, while new stub axles allow larger 5-series bearings to be fitted. The power-assisted steering has a very quick ratio, and not only is the anti-roll bar substantially stiffer, but it now pivots on the outside of the spring strut, giving extra leverage. Wheel movement is controlled by new twin-tube gas-pressurised dampers, tuned to different response curves front and rear. Revised damping plus harder springing are the modifications on the rear axle, which retains the geometry of the semi-trailing arm swept back at 15″

Both the front and rear brake discs are larger and thicker, the fronts being vented, and ABS is standard fitment. There is plenty of rubber in touch with the road, as the 15in alloy wheels carry 205/55 VR 15 Michelin MXX tyres.

But climb inside the M3 and nearly all these changes are invisible; true, the speedometer now reads to 160mph, and the top edge of the free standing rear spoiler intrudes slightly into the rear view, but the fascia looks perfectly standard 3-series, and the square-cut sports seats could be those fitted to many other fancy German cars. A steering wheel on the left looks out of place in a car with British plates, but as long as the car stands still it appears to be an ordinary small Munich saloon.

That feeling disappears within a few yards when the M3 sets off. There is a bark as the engine starts, and with the lever slotted down to the left for first, the quick positive clutch and hard responsive feel through the leather rimmed wheel indicate the character of the car even before the lever slips into fifth gear.

Everything feels tight and sharp; the gear ratios are close together, the steering is rapid, and there is an immediate answering surge when you depress the throttle. It does not seem to matter that the revs have nearly reached 5000 before the torque levels off; the engine pulls firmly even from a rather rumbly 2000rpm, getting stronger and stronger as the 4000 mark is passed on the way to its 6750 power peak, accompanied all the while by an almost Italian raspberry from the exhaust.

Although the smoothness of the six is missing, the harsh edge obvious at low revs quickly fades out; and no matter what the revs a stab of the throttle flicks the tach needle round smartly for very rapid gearchanges.

Only the pronounced angling of the steering wheel spoils the otherwise excellent driving position; the driver sits rather upright in the black leather Recaro seats with all instruments visible and all controls comfortably placed, but the axis of the wheel points strongly towards the centre of the car, stretching the left arm more than the right. Yes, one gets used to it, but it never feels quite right.

Amongst the instrumentation (lit at night by a pink glow) there is an oil-temperature gauge set into the tach but no pressure reading, surprisingly. BMW’s neat computer is installed in the centre console, but without the handy column stalk button of the 7-series, and incorporates an ice-warning which saw a lot of action on a trip north. A chime sounds and the readout flashes if the temperature drop to 38degrees F, and again when it drops to 34 degrees; if you get into the car in freezing conditions the alarm sounds when the ignition switch is turned.

Good heat and ventilated control is provided by rotary knobs, the horn buttons are set in the wheel spokes, and the door mirrors are electrically operated, although the windows are not, to save weight on the track. In all other respects, though, the M3 is equipped as a luxury saloon despite its uncompromising competition breeding; not surprising when you remember that, like ford Cosworth, even if 300 of these cars are sold to private race or rally teams, that leaves 4700 to be sold to the general public.

For the driver, the biggest contrast between Cosworth 500 and M3 is In power delivery. A racing car in road trim sounds a doubtful proposition to make available to the man in the showroom, even though the horsepower he gets is considerably less than what the big teams are playing with; 120bhp down on a top M3, and at least 200bhp less for the Ford than the Eggenberger Texaco Sierras which took the WTC team title in 1987.

While turbocharging allows extra horsepower to be added relatively easily, by enlarging the blower and revising the settings in the engine control system, the result in the RS500 shows up all the disadvantages of turbos for road use. Low compression means slow reactions while the little boost needle wavers below atmospheric pressure, but as it flicks to positive boost the urge redoubles and the car bolts forward like a cycle racer breaking away from the pack. IT is a Jekyll-into-Hyde switch; sudden but predictable if you keep an ear open to the engine and an eye on boost gauge and tach. Where the plain Cosworth had something to offer from 3000 but lost interest before 6000, the RS500 spins to seven thousand but waits until four to set off.

In a straight line it is exhilarating to keep the pedal hard down, listening to the squeal and puff of the blower in each gear while the arm-stretching thrust of second steps down tot eh calmer but no less exciting fifth-gear rush into the realm of three-figure speeds – for this is where a turbo excels. At 95mph the boost needle is quivering with anticipation: a twitch of the right foot and the speed whistles without effort to 120 or more.

But while the upward transition is controllable, the reverse is more likely to catch you out, when the snarling Mr. Hyde reverts to mild-mannered Dr. Jekyll. Settled in a corner with all four tyres sharing the work and a steady throttle, the Sierra feels completely flat and stable, little clonks coming through the small wheel to make you imagine that this is Donington’s Redgate corner; but when the real world intrudes with some mud on the road or a tighter kink than you allowed for, the risks of lifting off are magnified. If that boost gauge drops, a large chunk of horsepower will evaporate in an instant, and when pressing on hard that could spell disaster, promoting a spin so fast that even the Sierra’s quick steering might not save you.

With normal aspiration, the penalty for such a mistake is less severe, and the BMW’s 2in-shorter wheelbase means it is easy to catch should the rear wheel get out of line. Its top-gear performance, of course, cannot match the Cosworth, but both cars are exceptional anyway; from 70mph the M3 will hit 90 in just over seven seconds using third and fourth gears, which is impressive enough.

The unit revs willingly past maximum power (6750rpm) and on beyond the 7000 mark to a maximum 8000. In fact it is so keen to rev even in top that I repeatedly wanted a sixth gear, although the car is by no means under-geared – at 70mph the engine is turning at a comfortable 3000rpm, and the ratios are nicely spaced.

Driving the Ford quickly around country roads demands much more concentration. It is certainly the more extreme, the more racer-like of the two Group A cars; spherical joints instead of rubber in the suspension means the occupants know all about potholes, which reverberate through the interior. Spring rates are very stiff too, and the trade-off for the ultra-flat cornering and tremendous roadholding is the rattle and shudder over broken surfaces and bumps.

This is where the difference between the base cars begins to show; BMW’s fine standard of assembly carry through to its race-special, with solidly fitted panels and trim. Basic Sierras are aimed at a lesser market, and even the addition of all the luxuries such as velour Recaro seats and high-quality radio/cassette cannot disguise the tinnier sound of the doors shutting and the odd creaks from the fascia panels.

Yet it is a comfortable place to be, at the wheel of the Ford, cradled by the prominent bolsters of the firm seats. A smaller leather-covered wheel means less of a stretch, for like all the lesser Fords the wheel is not adjustable. Instead there is a crank to alter the height of the seat, though I should have been happier if the tilt angle were controllable separately. A leather gearknob tops the lever with its notchy action, less crisp than the M3 but fast enough when trying to shift from second to third without losing boost; the boost gauge itself is hidden by the wheelrim.

Other than this the dials are all in plain view, and the 90degree quadrant tachometer, for many years standard pattern for racing bikes, is particularly easy to take in out of the corner of the eye as the next double-bend unravels ahead of the Sierra’s blunt nose.

With its outrageous tail spoiler, strongly sculpted side-sills and bulky airdam, there is no fear of overlooking the Cosworth, and of course the choice of the three-door shell which the UK does not otherwise see distinguishes it from all other Sierras. Undoubtedly the spoiler’s effect is significant, amplified on the RS500 by the rubber lip and additional XR4 X 4 spoiler below which is the quick way to tell a “normal” Cosworth from the evolution car. Where the unadorned Sierra sways about in side-winds (improved in the latest cars but still unacceptable in the estates), the RS500 runs like a torpedo for the horizon, and the faster it goes the more dogged its aim.

Many a joke has been cracked about Cosworth drivers blissfully unaware of a police car in the shadow of this tailplane, but the serious fact is that nothing at all is visible in the RS500’s interior mirror. It may be the best anti-dazzle device ever, but it is frankly unsafe on the packed roads of southern England, and the tiny number of these cars which will be sold is not an exuse.

Away from the worst of the traffic, the RS500 simply leaves behind just about anything else available in power-per-pound terms. It is not surprising that, at less than £17,000, dealers and public alike were quick to absorb the original batch of 5000 cars, though not all of these left the dealers’ forecourts in a hurry, and advertisements still appear from time to time offering delivery-mileage cars.

Theoretically, all 500 evolution cars, converted from plain Cosworths, have been sold too, though no doubt some will surface again having been stored by optimistic investors.

Though it is eclipsed by the Ford is sheer brute performance, it has to be said that BMW has produced the more useable car. On a dry, open piece of road, the Cosworth offers the closest feeling to a rose-jointed racer, tiny movements of the wheel translating into a precise dart left or right while its adhesion squeezes the driver against the seat bolsters. Gently straightening the car and feeding in more boost makes the stomach tense with excitement and concentration – a wonderful sensation.

But venture out on a soggy day, and a different tension grips you. The front wheels skitter from puddle to puddle, and finding it will spin its wheels in third keeps you well away from the outside of the performance envelope. Only the relentless action of the brakes with their four-pot front callipers and ABS seems well suited to these conditions.

Try the same weather in the M3, and confidence returns. You can tell exactly how close to the edge those fat Michelins are treading, the balance is unaffected, and that sparkling engine continues to churn out instantly-controllable torque. With adequate forethought on road-positioning, LHD is not a problem; it demonstrates that the view past a slow lorry is from hanging back rather than being near the centre-line and this is a car which will whistle past in the smallest gaps. Undoubtedly the more rounded of the two in its blend of abilities, the little M3 is a gem.

BMW has been proved right in its belief that it would continue to sell to performance-hungry enthusiasts; an extra 1500 have been built over and above the FIA’s arbitrary figure of 5000 units, justifying its choice of a full-scale assembly line.

Ford, on the other hand, never intended to extend production of the homologated car beyond the minimum, being content that its relative cheapness and scarcity would ensure sufficient buyers, but instead planned a “new” model, saloon version with more emphasis on comfort. That car, the Saphhire RS Cosworth, will be announced at the beginning of this month and we will report our impression in the next issue. Its arrival will close the price gap between these two racetrack rivals, and make choosing between them a harder task.

As things are, there is a £4000 difference, so the man who can afford the BMW is possibly not going to see the RS500 as being in the same part of the market. But the Sierra Sapphire is an altogether more refined machine than the previous hatches, and with the right suspension compromise, ever better build quality, and the more responsive 204bhp engine, a Sapphire Cosworth might tread on BMW’s toes.

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BMW motorsport does not expect the new M3 to win races next year. Says motor sport engineering chief Thomas Ammerschlager – who came to BMW via Ford’s Zakspeed Capri and Audi four-wheel drive work – “l don’t think we will be able to win overall with the M3″, A pause. “We do think, however, that it will be very competitive in it’s class, “Pause two, “And we can also win the World Championship this way.”

But with the big 635CSi coupe winning Eurosaloon series counters this year and bound for the new World Group A series next, does BMW need another overall race victor? There is a thought in BMW’s slick, separate Motorsport Gmbh operation on Munich’s Preussentrasse that if the twin-cam, four-valve M635CSi supercar takes off in the United States, then that too might finally be homologated in Group A, Selling the necessary 5000 of the near-£40,000 car in Europe in 12 calendar months has defeated BMW in the past, but if the US will take up the slack in sales, then, for 1988, BMW can hit the opposition with an M6-M3 one-two.

So this £17,600 BMW M3 appears to be what used to be called an homologation special: a pejorative term coined to dismiss hard-riding, torque-less, noisy, limited-production machines aimed solely at letting a manufacturer chisel its way into international motor sport. Not true, BMW believes that final M3 production over the model’s unspecified lifespan will total 13,000, much more than the 5000 required to give the car a Group A homologation number and a free passage onto the starting grid. And, naturally, the M3 is closer to being a pedigree machine than simply a crude raiding of the company parts-bins in the name of sporting glory.

For a start, it looks radically different to any other yuppie-dream three-series. Steel wheelarches with quattroid flares are designed to mask racing tyres up to 10in wide. There is a deep front airdam, complete with blanking plates over brake cooling ducts. A neat, surprisingly low-key rear wing echoes back to 1973’s BMW 3.0CSL, the first European production-based race car to up the aerodynamic ante.

Even the rear window is raked an extra 3, and the plastic bootlid raised by 40mm for aerodynamic gain. Add into that mix front and rear screens which are bonded directly to the bodyshell to slick out the airflow and up chassis stiffness and BMW’s intentions look a shade more serious, in the windtunnel, the drag factor drops from Cd 0.38 to Cd 0.33 with a front/rear lift coefficient of 0.12/0.04. While the rival Ford Sierra RS Cosworth creates negative downforce at all speeds, the M3 is only a jot less efficient: yet neither car has a rear aerofoil with an adjustable centre blade to finely trim downforce from track to track.

Thomas Ammerschlager’s men have worked long and hard on the road car suspension. At the front end, castor angles have been tripled over three-series norm to dial some steering feel into the M3. Beefier five-series wheelbearings are used in now stub axles. Thickening the anti-roll bar, pivoting it on the outside of the strut and altering the mechanical advantage of those pivots has effectively doubled the roll- stiffness of any previous three-car. By contrast, save for the same twin-tube shocks, super-duty anti-roll bar and 25% locking factor limited slip differential, the rear axle of the M3 is much closer to off-peg BMW. Larger diameter and thicker ventilated discs hide behind 15in BBS alloy wheels and come with ABS anti-lock as standard.

Ammerschlager would like to see the M3 suspension become available across the three-series range as a factory option – which immediately highlights just how supple the ride on 205/55 low-profile rubber is. “It depends if the sales people can sell it for what it (should) cost” he says, “its brakes, suspension, struts and steering, “Ammerschlager smiles, “It isn’t cheap. It’s not just changing shocks and fitting shorter springs, you know….”

If the suspension and brakes sound good, then the new M3 engine should be even better, To pigeonhole it a little too neatly, this 2303cc four is simply two-thirds of the glorious twin-cam, 3.5-litre, 286bhp straight-six previously employed to leer butchly from the engine bay of BMW’s labeled M1, M5 and M635.

Why a four and not a unit based on the 325’s smooth-as-Jeffrey Archer six? A shorter crank lets the race engine scream at 9000rpm with a projected 10,000rpm maximum and there is, claims BMW, more torque pumped from down below from four big 93.4mm pistons. The block is the BMW 1500 heart from the ‘sixties which was the high-boost core of Nelson piquet’s 1983 World Championship-winning Brabham BT52B-BMW.

Unlike the gear-driven cams of the M12/13 Formula One engine, the M3 unit uses a duplex chain to rotate the twin overhead cams. Valve sizes are 37mm inlet and 32mm exhaust with a central spark-plug in a clean, pent-roof combustion chamber. Four throttle butterflies each feed an individual inlet tract with a Bosch Motronic engine management system monitoring the mixture and all other vital functions.

In line with the new German motoring morality-high performance is almost acceptable while exhaust pollution certainly isn’t – the M3 is available in two versions. With and without an exhaust-cleaning catalyst. The cat-car loses 5bhp from the free-breathing specification’s 200bhp at 6750rpm and has 7lb/ft trimmed from the cat-free’s 177lb/ft at 4750rpm torque output. On the road, the comparable 0-62mph times are 6.7 seconds down to 6.9s and top speed is reduced from 146mph to 143ph.

Two factors emerge from this backhanded acknowledgement that Germany’s environmentalist Green Party might just have a point. Firstly, with the catalyst in place and having sophisticated plastic bumpers which meet all worldwide requirements as standard, the M3 can be exported to America to dawdle musclebound in a 55mph world. Secondly, it proves that for fresh-air reasons BMW will ease back on the M3’s power output a little.

Now, eventually, the M3 will go to right-hand drive Japan but not to right-hand drive Britain. Why not? Because in Japan driving a European quality left-hooker confers a certain status: in Britain left-hand drive cars, however rare, are a fiscal disaster when finally traded in. And Ammerschlager reckons that unknitting the exhaust manifold on this angled engine – to feed a right-hand drive steering column through – would slash horsepower. “Technically speaking, anything is possible, of course. But a substantial docrease in engine power in right-hand drive form would distort this car’s character. “How much power would any British-market car lose? “About 15.20bhp, l’d say.”

On the road, the M3 chassis immediately excels while the jury is out over the ultimate engine performance. Compared to a standard three-series, the M3 underpinnings lose nothing and gain everything. The ride/handling manifesto is a marvelous compromise, with a supple ride being matched by a consistent grip. Turn-in is neat and tidy, the ABS-brakes are phenomenal, right up there in the Sierra Cosworth bracket, yet without even the slightest hint of that car’s steering-wheel tango under hard usage. Indeed, the overriding feeling issued by the M3 is one of thoroughly engineered quality: even the engine mounts are hydraulic to damp the four-pot buzz from perculating into the cockpit. The whole car feels solid, beautifully finished, clean and somber and crisp. It feels, well, like a BMW.

On the track, the road car reveals a gentle oversteer which can be provoked on the throttle and an easy-going understeer through slow to medium-speed turns. Firm and understated driving brings out the best in the chassis: sideways is slow in this car.

Looking at the power and torque curves for the M3 engine they seem meaty enough. But on the road, there is little effective power below 4000rpm. This is an engine which has to spin to deliver, and all from 4000rpm to the cut-out at 7250rpm. Keep the engine alive on the throttle and the car becomes quick rather than staggeringly fast, but it is a technique which places demands on the driver. There is little about getting the most from this engine which is easy or relaxing: yes, it will pull from 30mph in fifth gear, but that is not the point. To go quickly the gearbox must be used, the right ratio found at exactly the right time.

And that gearbox has a racing gate, with first opposite reverse and the top four gears filling out the H. Ratios are close, top is direct rather than overdrive and the shift can seem clonky thanks to insipid spring loading across the horizontal plane. You need closer to three days than three hours to begin to suss out the M3. A long, hard journey would answer all the questions over whether or not you could live with the peaky power band and the stolid shift.

Chances are you could. Chances are you’ve been spoilt by a succession of blandly obsequious user-friendly cars, and to use this real driver’s car on real driver’s road is, initially, enough to send your system into sugar-shock.

Right now, race prototype one, the muletta, has spent 2000 miles being pounded around Italy’s Mugello circuit by Austrian saloon ace Dieter Quester. He says it is going to be a great race car. “It’s much more neutral than the road car” he confirms as he chauffeurs you around the superbly challenging Tuscan track in a fine whistle or road M3 Uniroyal-squeal. “But this car is good for a road car, no? “he says as he uses the kerb to straighten out his corner exit. Next lap he turns-in earlier to compensate for the rear tyres going off a fraction. Tomorrow he will be back in the muletta, working on 1987.

BMW won’t run a works M3 team next year. Instead, Quester and Ammerschlager’s army will work on producing a Group A racing specification for any race team to buy. “There will be an engine kit, suspension, wheels, even the fuel tank” says Ammerschlaer. “It will be like a CKD (completely knocked down) kit in a box, “Charley Lamm’s Schnitzer team will get to open the M3 box along with a host of teams contesting both the World and various national European Group A series. Except for Britain, of course: BMW GB won’t race a model that is not sold in this country.

A 300bhp 2.3-litre BMW M3, even though Ammerschlager promises the car will be on the 960kg class weight limit, won’t be able to hold the turbo-torque of, say, a 400bhp 2.0-litre Ford Sierra RS Cosworth on the race-track. But when you ask BMW Motorsport what they learned most about developing the Formula One engine since 1981, the reply does not centre on materials technology, Bosch Motronic programming, fuel chemistry or valve timing. No, says Ammerschlager, what BMW learned about is turbocharging. Does this mean BMW Motorsport’s future might include a turbocharged car? A turbocharged M3, perhaps? Ammerschlager says, carefully, “that it’s a bit premature to talk about any projects we envisage for the future. But it’s possible, yes”.

And rallying? There is a four-wheel drive 325i in the BMW brochure now. Would that driveline fit snugly beneath an M3 to produce a Ford Sierra XR4×4-beating, 4wd Mazda 323-pummeling loose-surface rally star? Ammerschlager worked on engineering Audi’s Quattro-system to its more prosaic models and building on the all-wheel drive future: privately he can talk of a day, 10 years hence, when torque-split changes progressively through a corner from turn-in power on. But a 4wd M3?

“I’m pretty sure that this won’t become a four-wheel drive BMW, because the engine modifications to get the system to fit would be so substantial that they wouldn’t be worth it….”so BMW Motorshport does not want to win rallies, does not expect to win races. A World Championship, saloon car style, would do nicely instead. And so, even more than it appears initially, the BMW M3 will become the definitive class act.

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Time to wake up. BMW has finally recovered from the shock when it had to watch Daimier-Benz marching into its territory and selling small sports sedans. Now the Bavarians are hitting back. They started with the 325i in Europe, the first whole-heartedly acceptable successor of the lamented 2002tii. Now comes the Three Series-based M3, BMW’s tardy answer to the Bomber-Benz 190E 2.3-16.

What’s more development of the M3’s 16valve four yielded as much power in European catalyst form as it did in US early spec about 200bhp Düsseldorf or Des Moines. A US BMW spokesman says DOT/EPA versions of the car will come to the US early in 1987, and that performance differences between those cars and our European M3 test car will be negligible.

The formula is much the same as Mercedes: 2.3litres in four cylinders, 16valves and on top of it a full load of aerodynamic body-modifications that are a matter of taste, to say the least. Visually the M3 represents pretty heavy stuff, bulbous wheel-arch extensions, spoilers, rear wing and all. The latter does give worthwhile reduction in rear-end lift, though-in conjunction with other add-ons that need a second glance to become obvious. In fact the complete upper rear section proves to be unique. It is made of plastic and gives and gives a slightly flatter rear window with a correspondingly shorter trunklid. All this not only improves high-speed stability to very satisfactory levels, it also reduces aerodynamic drag, the coefficient dropping from 0.36 (325i) to 0.33. It might help to bear that in mind when trying to install luggage through the now very narrow boot opening into a much smaller compartment.

Inside the M3 things look a lot more restrained. The fuel gauge housed within the big rev-counter had to make way for an oil temperature gauge. Deeply profiled sports seats, an option on other Three series BMWs, are standard and – the fiddly height-adjustment apart-an excellent compromise.

The whole interior gives an impression of how scrupulous German car manufacturers can be when it comes to functionality. If you expect to have a right to decadent luxury after paying 58,300 Dmarks/$27,100(in Germany) for a car, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Things like leather upholstery, air conditioning and even ventral door locks have to be ordered as extras (As with the Mercedes, these specs might differ for the US). The BMW’s aura is Spartan rather than baroque and that makes it very refreshing.

The expensive looking parts of this BMW lie beneath its skin. Open the hood and you will get spoiled. What you see is a small but beautiful example of Bayerische Motoren Werke at its best, all tastefully made up. The fact that this new hero counts fewer cylinders and fewer cc’s than the much cheaper 325i (33,000 DM/S15,350 in Germany) doesn’t mean much. What counts is the result, expressed in bhp, and here the new four cylinder scores. Whereas BMW’s small six cylinder (M20-series) with 2.5 liters and 171bhp has pretty much reached its limits, the M3 engine is still rather under stressed. Two hundred bhp might look like a good start, but if one examines things a bit closer-especially the M3’s new multi-throttle fuel injection- there is no doubt plenty in reserve for future activities, specifically those on European race tracks.

Nevertheless BMW’s PR people don’t find it easy to explain that apparent lack of cylinders to traditional customers. They have to reach way upscale to the current 1.5liter Formula One engine, in fact, to give the right clues. Though, to be honest, the relation between these two engines is rather loose. One of the differences: to squeeze the required 2.3 liters into the four cylinder-block (still dating back to the old faithful M10-series), the bore had to be widened to 93.4mm, losing the waterjackets between cylinders. Stroke measures a rather long 84mm.

Even if it doesn’t have all that much in common with the F1 motor, there can be no doubt that this engine is a real thorough-bred. It feels like one and it acts like one, giving that full-blooded bite one misses with so many products of the electronic fuel injection age. Power keeps on pouring in, instantly and right through the rev-band. Floor the throttle at 1500rpm and you will feel an impressive punch that belies the small size of this engine. The way it urges up to its 7100rpm limit should recreate that healthy smile that some BMW drivers lost long ago. In that respect the new M3-engine undoubtedly sets new standards in its class, making its 167bhp archival with the three-pointed star feel fairly emasculated.

The M3 used for this test, however, didn’t quite live up to our expectations as far as the figures were concerned. 100km/h (62mph) came up after a standing start in 7.8sec, considerably short of the claimed 6.7sec. 160km/h (100mph) took 19.1 sec, the quarter mile being covered in 15.5sec. While this is nothing to complain about, BMW itself make it look slightly disappointing. An ordinary 325i (0-62mph:7.7sec;0-100mph:20.2sec;quarter mile:15.5sec) can give the M3 a good run for its money, proving that 29 additional horsepower is not by itself enough to open new dimensions. Like the Mercedes, the extra power mostly shows up at the top end: When we took the M3 to the autobahn it pulled nearly 7000rpm in fifth gear, which is fast by anybody’s standard. The maximum speed worked out to be 237km/h (148mph), one click quicker than promised and, thanks to a close ratio five-speed box, well within the working range on unlimited highways.

The gearbox itself proves to be just what a proper sports-sedan needs. Once used to first being sited out to the left, to allow second through fifth to form the H, it makes hunting through the gears a joy, with at least two ratios to choose from at almost any speed.
With that kind of powertrain at one’s command, it proves difficult to resist digital driving, i.e. with power either fully on or fully off. So it comes as no surprise that in real life the M3 doesn’t exactly qualify as a fuel-miser. Average consumption amounted to 16.9mpg with a low of 14.0mpg. It may be comforting to know, though, that under restrained driving 21.8mpg is well within reach.

Good news as the M3-engine certainly is to the enthusiast, there is one area where it is badly lacking refinement. Surely the fact that two cylinders are missing does not stay unnoticed. But even if one doesn’t expect the ultra-sweet behavior of a typical BMW six, the M3’s lack of manners in this respect is disappointing. Running between 4000rpm and 5500rpm induces a high frequency exhaust-boom that can’t be called exciting any longer. It is nerve racking. That this happens in a very useful rev-range makes it even more annoying.

Perhaps this shortcoming is more irritating on the BMW than it would be on other cars because in all other departments the M3 is admirably civilized. Driven fast over undulating roads, it is proof that even a car of such pronounced sporting nature doesn’t have to be uncomfortable. The M3’s suspension, basically standard Three-series but carefully tuned to cope with its increased performance, is well dumped but still soft enough to keep the wheels on the ground under all but the most extreme circumstances. The ride feels firm but well controlled and is complemented by outstanding handling qualities, with light, precise steering, quick reactions and little understeer, when turning into corners. Pressing on the M3 reassures its driver with basically neutral cornering and makes him feel free to manipulate it into satisfying oversteer, should he be in that kind of mood. A limited slip differential (25 percent) ensures sufficient progress under extreme circumstances.

There are moments, though, when the M3 needs special care and attention. They show when braking hard, especially on less than perfect road surfaces. Directional stability, otherwise one of the M3’s strong points, suffers noticeably, although the brakes themselves (ABS is standard equipment) leave nothing to be desired.

So what do you get? Apart from a steep drop in your bank account, no more and no less than a sports-sedan par excellence. No doubt the M3 represents the current state of art as far as sensible sporting machinery is concerned. That said, it might come as a surprise that it also is a homologation special, destined for the European Touring Car Championship.

With BMW’s exit from F1, it is in the Touring Car Championship that BMW will keep its motorsports flag raised in Europe. The M3 should serve it well.

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