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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Group B rally cars, the Killer Bees, were among the fastest and most technically advanced race cars ever made. Manufacturers competing in Group B had only to build 200 examples for homologation, which were sold primarily to private racing teams and collectors of exotic machinery in Europe.

But the Killer Bees got too fast and FISA realized that it had lost control of the rules and of rallying. The French administrators used the excuse of a few racing accidents to end the Killer Bees by moving the World Championship from Group B to Group A.

Group A cars are limited to 300bhp, and they must maintain a stock silhouette. Most importantly, 5000 examples must be built for homologation. Without hope of selling 5000 cards as radical and expensive as the Killer Bees, internationally rally competitors – Audi, Peugeot, Lancia, Ford and BMW – were forced to build cars that can actually be sold to the general public for a reasonable price.

For American enthusiasts the end result of the switch from Group B to Group A rally cars is the arrival on these shores of the BMW M3, Munich’s chosen weapon for Group A warfare.

Outside, the clever engineers of BMW Motorsports, the independent racing organization of BMW, have made considerable changes to lower the car’s drag coefficient and provide a strong base for development of the rally cars. Some found the M3’s boy racer styling unattractive and flamboyant, but the changes were made with racing in mind. The rear roof cap, flatter rear glass, shorter rear deck lid, and full width wing first break up then smooth out air flow to keep the M3’s rear wheels firmly planted at high speed. The steel fender blisters provide more than enough room for the 15X7in. wheels and 205/55VR-15 Pirelli P600s. Slightly wider wheels would better fill out the big fenders, but the available tires provide sufficient grip.

The body panels come painted in only four colors: silver metallic, grey metallic, white and henna red. We don’t recommend the henna red. Orange cars with wings traveling at high speeds draw an inordinate amount of attention from state authorities and this car, even if painted beige, poses a great threat to one’s driver license.

Inside, the M3 resembles most other 3-series cars, excepting a few details. The dash is logical, the switches all come readily in hand, and there’s just enough luxury to meet market demands. The seats – optional units from 325 – are covered in black leather, as in almost everything else in the interior. The seats offer few adjustments, but provide excellent support for thighs, hips, lower back, and shoulders.

We may accept BMW’s position that 735/750i, 528c, and 325 owners don’t need or want a full complement of gauges for their strafing runs at the country club. In those cars a panel of warning lights probably serves the driver better than would gauges. The M3, however, is not typical of the cars BMW has produced in recent years. An oil temperature gauge has appeared in the tachometer nacelle, but dials for oil pressure and amperes would help considerably.

The M3’s powerplant has much to do with the car’s sporting character. The 192bhp engine serves as a sterling example of what Bavarian engineers can achieve when not forced to go CAFÉ racing for the US government. Topped with a 16 valve head similar to those used on BMW Formula Two powerplants, the thirsty engine must run on premium unleaded because of its relatively high compression ratio of 10.5:1. Even with the precise fuel metering of a Bosch Motronic injection system, the M3 returns only 13 or 14mph when driven hard in town or on an autocross course. On the highway the car manages to top 20mpg, but that is only at legal speeds using a light foot. The first casualty of improved performance is usually fuel economy and the M3 has a nearly unquenchable thirst for petroleum distillates.

Although power is only adequate below 3000rpm, once there the engine sings, with power growing quickly as the two chain-driven cams spin closer to their optimum speed. In the heart of its range the little mill has the delicious sound of a sewing machine gone mad. The whir and scream ends abruptly at 7250rpm when the rev limiter kicks in, the engine pops from lack of fuel, and the power disappears.

The engine buzzes and shakes considerably, but only valve train whir and a strong exhaust note reach the passenger compartment because of a high-density foam liner inside the engine hood, which fills every open cavity in the engine compartment and absorbs most of the engine’s unpleasant sounds.

The M3 is a bit slow off the line, but once under way it accelerates smoothly. Second gear ends just a few miles per hours short of 60, which is reached in 7.5 seconds with a short shift to third. Third pushes the car to nearly 85mph, fourth takes the car well past 100, and the claim top speed is 143mph. We saw the car through to 140mph indicated before first running out of smooth road and then meeting a country mounty.

Mated to the engine is a close-ratio Getrag 5-speed that shifts as smoothly and positively as any gearbox we’ve recently tried. The ratios are well matched to the engine, with two gear choices available almost every speed. The M3 performs best in second and third gears and it can stay close to more powerful cars down tight roads.

To make the cuts on those tight roads, Motorsports reworked the caster angles of the font wheels, which makes the car’s steering considerably sharper than that of a 325. The steering provides excellent feel for road surfaces without communicating too much harshness to tire hands and shoulders.

Because this is a proper rear-wheel drive car, in low and medium speed cornering, the throttle contributes as much to steering as do the front wheels. Jumping off then back on the throttle while entering a corner smoothly brings the tail around. Once the rear end is out, judicious throttle and steering input keeps the tail positioned to the driver’s liking.

The M3 does whatever the driver asks, whether the commands are right or wrong. Some cars are called forgiving, which means they don’t kill the driver when he makes a serious error. But it also means the car didn’t follow the commands the driver made. The car’s suspension compensate for the driver’s mistakes by not reacting properly.

Make the correct decisions with the M3 and virtually no situation is beyond salvation. Crest a hill too fast, find that the road turns sharply to the right, and the M3, once its weight is back on the wheels, can be gathered up and set right with the road once again. Enter a corner too fast and either understeer can slow the car or power oversteer will get your through in more heroic fashion.

When slowing for a corner the 11.0in. front and 11.2in. rear discs slow the car quickly and surely. And ABS system comes into play under full braking and the sensation is of hitting a huge marshmallow. Like the car’s steering and handling, the brakes draw top marks.

Even in its detuned homologation configuration, the M3 is a racing car that provides ample testimony for BMW’s engineering capabilities. It’s remarkably quick, driving it fast is irresistible, it attracts attention from patrolmen as few other cars do, and said patrolmen will throw you in jail or at least raise your insurance premiums by a significant amount. The M3 got us into plenty enough trouble.

For everyday driving the 325is, which has a smoother inline six cylinder engine with nearly as much power, may prove the better choice. But if racing in the Firehawk series, autocrossing, or having the fastest BMW in town is your desire, then the M3 is the only choice available.

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This week, I came 199^th in a competition to find the best driver round Germany’s Nurburgring.

What we are talking about here is a performance that could have been bettered by Ray Charles; a performance that was so unutterably awful, no excuse can be accepted. The world now knows what I’ve suspected for some time. I am to driving what Bernard Manning is to Herbalife.

The saga began when the BMW invited someone from the good offices of Performance Car to spend a few days at an annual driving event on what must surely be the world’s greatest race track.

For a host of reasons, none of the proper editorial staff could make it so the offer was passed down through the accounts department, down through the typing pool and down past the man in a shabby overcoat who was enjoying the flavour of a half smoked cigarette butt he’d found in a dustbin outside. Eventually, it landed on my desk.

Organised by a conglomeration of all the European BMW owners’ clubs, the event attracts visitors from as far afield as Norway, California and Wokingham.

The idea is that you spend a week begin coached on the niceties of high speed driving and more importantly, how best to circumnavigate the ‘Ring. You learn the ideal line through every corner, you learn about braking points and where to change gear. You learn about bravery. Well, some people do anyway.

This year, 248 BMW club members descended on the tiny German village of Nurburg in cars, on bikes or in strange plastic things which looked like bladeless helicopters with wheels.

Needless to say, most of the competitors were German, but 22 were from Britain’s BMW Car Club.

And what a crazy assortment they were too. Though they were all wildly different, there was one factor which each had in common with all the others.

None had the typical customer profile that one would normally associate with BMW. None of them lived in South West London. None of them worked in advertising. None of them had a Filofax.

They had a weird assortment of cars, too. There was a 3.2litre CSL Batmobile, and Alpina CSL, a few 325s with steel wheels and wind down windows, a brace of turbocharged B7s, a 2002 turbo driven by a very brave man indeed, an automatic 320 driven by a slightly less brave character and, among other things, a bright red M5 which had been taken there by a curious little man who wore bright green clothes and refused to eat anything.

One youngster who had the dimensions of an elephant turned up without a car on account of the drink driving laws. He wouldn’t have been allowed on the circuit anyway in case the caterpillar on his top lip became a butterfly and put him off.

All week he tried to claim it was a moustache but having watched it closely for some time, I’m inclined to disagree.

Even though I’d been given an M3 for the week, it still took me five hours to reach the ‘Ring from Calais and most of this journey was spent in Belgium; a country where the entire nation does nothing but eat and flatulate.

In England, France and Germany, the M3 attracted envious stares but in Belgium, no-one paid it the slightest bit of attention. One overweight chappie tried to eat the rear spoiler but when he discovered it didn’t contain the required amount of methane, he gave up.

It’s important to stress that I’d taken up the invitation to go because I genuinely thought it would improve my driving. However, various conversations into which I barged on the first night indicated my reasoning was wrong.

Some where there to show everyone just how brilliant they were behind the wheel of a car (or the handlebars of a motorcycle), some, like the elephant man, were there for social reasons, some were there because they enjoy the feeling of being part of a club and some where there out of respect for the Nurburgring circuit itself.

I had heard of it, of course, I knew it was quite long and that Niki Lauda had very nearly met his maker on one of its 187 treacherous bends.

I knew that today’s Formula One namby parnbys are frightened of it and that it is set in some quite pretty countryside.

I was sort of half right. Although the Southern curve has been bulldozed to make way for the characterless Neur circuit round which the 200mph F1 cars now race, the entire Northern loop still exists in all its gyratory, tortuous splendour. It twists and turns and rises and falls for nigh on 14 miles, never running straight and true for more than a few inches at a time.

If the German authorities wished to hold a serious race meeting at the old ‘Ring now, they would need to find 300 marshalls, six helicopters and 20 or so doctors. Plus of course a whoop of hairstylists to keep the tanned drivers happy.

Then they’d need to increase the Armco barriers from two deep to three and, finally bigger run off areas would have to be provided which would mean savaging thousands of acres of pine forest to a degree that not even acid rain can manage.

At present, one only needs hope over the barriers which on occasion are perilously close to the track, and immediately one is shrouded in the eerie silence that’s an integral part of any decent sized wood.

Located 3000 feet above sea level in the Eifel mountains, the surrounding countryside is of a buttock clenching quality but if you really want to make your checks work for a living, you should get a ride round with someone who’s been there before.

The peculiar man in bright green took me round in his M5, an ordeal which demanded a great deal of courage, determination and a plentiful supply of clean underpants.

It seems to go on, like a dreadful fairground ride, for an eternity and I was never quite sure if the funny little man who could barely see over the steering wheel, really did know whether the road went left or right after each brow.

It was with fear and trepidation that I arrived for the first full day’s bullying.

We had been divided up into small groups of 20 or so for the three day training period, the idea being that we would cover one section then move on to another, allowing the people behind to fill our vacant slot, Germans with megaphones in cars with flashing lights policed the scheme so nothing went wrong. Once, I put a foot out of line and learned what it was like to be screamed and flashed at.

Our instructor was a genial expert called Michael Middelhaufe, a BMW test driver who knows the ‘Ring well enough to have given every piece of fauna around its entire length a name. He was notable for two things; his appalling English and his even more appalling shoes.

They were so unusual, I failed to listen to his instructions on our first section, which involved braking hard in a corner and simultaneously missing some cones.

Middelhaufe claimed anti-lock brakes would be a hindrance, which seems to be at odds with what various manufacturers have been ramming down my throat over the past few years.

As I sped towards the corner, it occurred to me that because of his shoes and the distraction they’d caused, I had not listened to what speed I ought to be doing so I slowed down to 80mph which, with hindsight, was still a mite too fast.

If the M3 hadn’t been equipped with anti-lock brakes, I wouldn’t have come to a halt yet. As it was I was damned close to the Czechoslovakian border when serenity returned. It should be said, though, that I didn’t knock anything over except a few megaphone-bedecked marshalls.

Nor did I mangle anything on the slalom but when you consider I was twice as slow as everyone else, this is not surprising.

Things went a little awry on the lane change manoeuvre when I ploughed off the road. You wouldn’t believe me if I said I was hit on the head half way through the exercise by a cassette so I won’t.

Other training outings involved driving a brand new 528i into a barrier for no apparent reason, trying to make a 325i move when its rear wheels were caked in cooking fat, and hurtling round a car park in a Golf with no back wheels.

Frankly, I was most interested in getting to grips with the circuit itself, even though Middelhaufe had said the M3 is ‘a naughty thing’ unlike the M5 which, he claims, is a ‘proper car’.

He was right. You may have recalled elsewhere in this issue that the editor, Mr. Jesse Crosse, manage a fourth place in the Willhire 24 hour race, but I’m afraid I was unable to tame the combination of left-hand drive, a dog-leg gearbox, 200bhp and tyres made by Slumberdown.

In a nutshell, Jesse Crosse knows how to drive fast and well. I don’t.

There are more twists and turns in the Hatzenbach section of the Nurburgring than Silverstone has in its entire length.

And I was given three attempts to get it right. If I had been given 300 attempts, I would still get it wrong for the simple reason that I could not concentrate on where the road went next, where I should be turning in and, most importantly, which gear I should be in on that infernal dog-leg gearbox all at the same time.

Furthermore, I simply daren’t go too fast for fear of crashing. An accident you see would mean I’d get no more BMWs to play with and without BMWs I couldn’t do my job properly. That in turn would mean I’d have to sack my servants that increasing unemployment and therefore allowing Labour to win the next election. Dire, but logical, consequences I’m sure you’ll agree.

The instructor didn’t but I had no more time to de-mystify him because the group behind were champing at the bit.

At the next corner, he showed us the ideal line but I’m afraid I took issue. There followed a lively exchange of views with him asking me if I thought I knew better than Fangio and Stewart and me asking him whether he wanted to know what his terrible shoes tasted like.

The following bend, called Aremberg, was the trickiest piece of road I’d ever seen. You have to fly over the blind brow of a hill, and lift momentarily before turning in to a shallow left-handler much earlier than seems reasonable.

Then you must go hard on the brakes and turn in very, very late for a downhill ninety degree right-hander.

Middelhaufe was struggling to find a more suitable word than valour to describe what a driver needs to do it properly.

‘Balls’, I suggested. ‘Yes’, he said, ‘I want you to show me your balls when you go round here’.

By taking him literally, I ended up missing the apex completely and nearly wrote off BMW’s only press fleet M3.

The training progressed along these lines for three days until I was in such a muddle that I couldn’t sort out which planet I was on, let alone whether I was about to encounter Flugplatz, Hohe Acht or Adenauer Forst.

Certain corners came easily, Brunchen was one which I could take faster than anyone and I had Schwalbenschwanz down to a fine art too because a rather useful lupin (called Steven) was growing at exactly the place where I could let the M3 begin to drift.

Wipperman wasn’t too difficult either though the instructor kept telling me the kerbs were for kissing not bouncing over.

Adenauer Bridge, on the other hand was a pig. Time after time, I went flying around the steepish right-hander before it far too fast so there wasn’t’ a snowball’s chance in hell of someone as uncoordinated as me getting to the other side of the road, braking, studying the gearbox map, executing a change and getting the power on again before the left-hander which followed shortly afterwards.

Over and over again, the instructor explained I ought to slow down, but then part of my problem is that I always know more about everything I’m doing than anyone else. Such outrageous confidence means that I am never nervous before an examination because I’m always utterly convinced I will sail through with flying colours.

Besides, I’ve never really been all that bothered about whether I pass or fail – this is probably why my only qualification is an ____ plus exam in origami.

I wanted to win at the ‘Ring though. It was man and machine versus the greatest circuit in the world and, as a result, the ___wobbles were with me as I lined up on the grid on Saturday morning.

All the instructors, including good old Middelhaufe, were located at strategic points around the circuit and as we drove by they would mark us for correctness of line and speed.

I considered swopping numbers with the oddball in the M5 so they’d think I was him. I considered doing the whole thing in second gear so that it at least sounded like I was going quickly. I considered paying Derek Bell to do it for me but in the end I stood up to the challenge. Nerves of steel.

My spirits were lifted when the poor chap in front of me made two mistakes on the grid. Firstly, he wasn’t in his car when the flag was dropped and secondly, he stalled it on the line.

I think my worst mistake was stopping for a cigarette after the Karussell which sent the attendant marshalls into fits of violent and uncontrollable apoplexy.

Second in the error pecking order was taking a wrong turning and doing two laps of the new circuit and third was the complete pig’s ear I made of the Hatzenback section.

There were other cock-ups too, some of which were my fault, some of which I blamed on my co-driver and map reader, photographer Tim Andrew, and some of which I tried to blame on the car.

The most noteworthy incident was at Schwalbenschwanz where I discovered to my horror that some fool had run over Steven the lupin. Had he been there, I would have drifted nicely over to the other side of the track. As it was I didn’t stop skidding till I was back in Calais docks.

I was totally lost in Metzgesfeld, I suffered from complete brainfade at Bergwerk and while obeying the instructions of instructor Herr Middelhaufe and aiming for Geoffrey the pine tree at the Karusell, I hit a kerb.

All the way round, I looked forward to Brunchen where I would show the judge, a chappie called Fritz Scherb, just how it should be done. Brake hard, back on full power in third, catch the slide, kiss the apex and brush the kerb on the way out.

But sadly a crowd had gathered so I decided to miss out the braking bit. We kissed the apex all right and I held the slide quite well too but to say we brushed the kerb on the way out is an exaggeration. No, it’s more than that. It’s a lie.

We went over the kerb, over the rumble strips and on to the grass where the M3 sorted itself out and rejoined the main track to tumultuous applause from the engrossed assembled throng, who obviously knew a good deal about the finer points of car control.

I had to wait until 11 o’clock that night to discover just how badly I’d done. 17^th out of 22 in the group. 199^th out of 248 overall and I received an award for being the noisiest newcomer.

According to the scoresheet I was nearly perfect at Aremberg, better than average at Metzgesfeld and bloody terrible everywhere else except Kallenhard, where Middelhaufe said I was diabolical.

The weirdo in his M5 took fourth place overall and Jonathan Hooker in the Batmobile was third.

I tried to claim I’d been going so quickly that they couldn’t see where I was on the track properly, that the judges were all bored by the time I made it round and that they were penalising M3 drivers for being rich sons of bitches. I even tried to argue they were getting at me because of my continual references to the war.

Gently, some burly German took me aside, inserted a piece of lingerie in my mouth and explained that I’d come 199^th because I was the 199^th best driver.

I haven’t cried so much since Bambi’s mother was shot.

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For the M3 team, the nitty gritty had started a couple of weeks before with a practice session at Snetterton to try the aluminum long range fuel tank and set the car up for the heavy fuel load it would  have to carry. Working on the premise that one gallon of fuel weighs 7.5lb, it is obvious that the 25 gallon maximum fuel load allowed can play havoc with the handling of a saloon car. First attempts with the M3, when the tank proceeded to leak like sieve, were not encouraging. M3 chief mechanic Paddy Gibson swore under his breath as well as on top of it, while ladling out gallons of the lethal golden fluid from the boot of the car, and muttering something about bag tanks.

The Sierra meanwhile was undergoing basic training, or rather its crew was. The big endurance racing tank was still to be fitted so this was merely a shake down for drivers. The day was also a press day, and regular driver Morgan gave Jeremy Walton a run round the circuit to demonstrate how things should be done in a car graced with inherent understeer followed by power oversteer, plus a little turbo lag into bargain. Walton found it interesting (the circuit was damp) and emerged white faced and a lot wiser having experience a couple of high speed spins, form the passenger seat.

All character building stuff.

Meanwhile, work with the M3 progressed, holes were bunged up, tyres were swapped and testing continued. McHale and Sands comfortably managed to lap in the one minute 24 second bracket with a third fuel load. Somehow, I couldn’t manage better than 1:25.4 and ended the day depressed. The car, though, was tidy in the extreme at that speed, never touching a kerb, never crashing over run off strips, which damages the bearings, and never having to endure heavy braking. It was the last point that would finally work to our advantage.

At the end of the day, the M3 went back to have the tank modified and undergo a rethink, while the Sierra returned to its Mallory Park stable for final endurance preparations. The team would have to test the big tank on Friday 19 June, the day before the race.

A week later, the ‘phone rang and Sands announced that we were booked in to test the M3 again on Thursday 18. This we duly did and it proved to be something of a saving grace. In the meantime the car had been on the rolling road at Steve McHale’s company, Machtech Tuning, had had the dampers reset to soften it up and more Pirelli P600s had been buffed down to the three millimetres tread depth needed for production racing.

By Thursday evening work and testing on the M3 was complete and we put it back in its box. Retuning the injection had given us about 14mpg instead of eight, while the Cosworth Sierras could reckon on between four and six mpg. But many teams hadn’t even arrived at that point, and were counting on using the Friday to accomplish the final setting up and the important calculation of fuel consumption, which helps the team plan the number of routine stops necessary.

Our strategy in the M3 was to go easy on the braking, starting at 180 yards minimum at the end of Snetterton’s Revett Straight, and thereby help to reduce pit stops to a minimum. We knew that the Sierras would have to stop much more regularly for fuel and brakes, and that would be a handicap. In truth, nobody seriously expected any of the Cosworths to last the distance anyway, but the possibility had to be accounted for.

The Class B BMW was probably giving away around 70bhp to the Class A Sierra Cosworths. Paddy Gibson was expecting to change brake pads, (the new Mintex M200s) every second stop. Little did he know what the future would bring. The TCCS team had decided to go ahead of use their brakes to the full, glazing them if necessary.

The Preliminaries

Friday 19 June was wet, and just 24 hours before the start. It was so wet that the A11 became seriously flooded and Snetterton Circuit not much better. A sweeping and sucking truck trundled round and round the track as teams sat in caravans, tents or motorhomes and sulked. Some of the pits had mini-torrents rushing through them, and the outlook was grim. Those who had counted on checking fuel consumption and full fuel load handling at the last minute were in trouble. There would be little happening today.

Official qualifying, set for between 4:30pm and 6:00pm, was cancelled as the sky became blacker and the organisers decided to include the period with the night qualifying session instead.

The pit lane was a dramatic sight that night, enough to send a rush of adrenalin surging through the most distinterested of souls. A tangle of pipes and air lines, dangling like huge telephone cables from hastily erected gantries. Refuelling crews standing by, eerily dressed, or so it seemed in the half light, in flame-proof garb similar to that worn by the drivers themselves, but minus the helmets. There was shouting and general hubbub, broken by the occasional wobbling scream of pneumatic power tools as wheels were hastily changed. Orders were barked, engines rumbled into life and kicked with expectant blasts of power, while drivers impatiently prodded at throttles. People were anxious to get on with the job.

Further along the row of gleaming cars and equipment our other car, in which Jeremy Walton would do his level best, waited too. It was the Sierra Cosworth prepared by TCCS Racing, one of seven in the race, and driven by regular driver Dave Morgan. This weekend he would share it with Jeremy, Sean Brown (a Uniroyal Saloon Car championship regular) and Rod Birley, another well known saloon car exponent.

At 10:30pm we all arrived expectantly at our soggy garage. I would go first, trundle round as safely as possible, get out and go to bed. This I did, and the conditions were horrible. We were supposed to have until midnight, but I completed four laps or so in times around 1:43 and stopped without further ado. McHale and Sands stayed longer and got down to 1:38, giving us a very modest position more than halfway down the grid. Making a big effort at good grid positions, thereby risking the car, is actually a waste of time when in terms of distance, the difference between our time and that of the fastest cars was worth a few yards. The total race distance would be nearly 2000 miles….

Under Starters’ Orders

The big day, Saturday 20 June. Picking at breakfast, bats in the stomach, searching for supplies of extra strong mints and a place where it wasn’t raining.

M3 team manager, Jeremy Nightingale, explained in his best team manager’s voice, ‘I don’t want it cool, and I don’t want it wet.’

This was because cool air favours the powerful turbo cars which we were hoping would break down, and the wet favours the front-wheel-drive cars.

It looked as though we would get away with it after all, and I for one wasn’t sorry. We had sorted out the driving stints the day before, Sands would lead off, I would run second, and McHale third. Sands and McHale would alternate during the night and we would play it by ear on Sunday.

We were ready for it. We had all sat around a lot over the last couple of days; all, that is, except: Gibson and his crew who had continued to work on the M3.

Our Sierra pit had been hard at it too. They had more to do, having started later, and set fire to a rear brake when the calliper seized during the midday warm-up session prior to the race.

By 3:30pm, the pits were alive with activity. Pit crews stood by their refuelling towers, and the racing system shifted into top gear.

With ten minutes to go drivers started getting organised. Easing into bucket seats, hauling legs over those parts of the roll cage that cross the door opening, pulling four- or six-point racing harnesses tightly over hips and shoulders, and tugging insulating balaclavas over heads.

The scenario was almost complete, and for most drivers it was time to compose the mind and concentrate on what would happen in the next few minutes. Sands and Morgan would start our M3 and Cosworth respectively, a start that would commence behind a pace car. Warm up races had whetted the appetite of a large crowd and the circuit was packed by the time the green and white Sierra Cosworth course car with its orange flashing lights pulled into the pit lane, unleashing the pack that snapped impatiently at its heels.

There was a roar.

The racers were in close company, jostling through Russell, the ‘S’ bend at the beginning of the start/finish straight, weaving and feinting to gain an advantage. The race was on.

The M3 was lying 14^th after the first hour – the Sierra fourth. Sierras occupied the first four places. In 24 hours time, they would occupy the first three.

As 6.37, Morgan was called in for fuel, brakes, tyre check, and the fitting of Jeremy Walton into the driver’s seat. Jeremy Walton into the driver’s seat. Jeremy left the pit lane three minutes later.

At 6.59pm, the BMW slid neatly into its pit with a puff of smoke from the brakes. The fuelling crew leaped to the rear of the car, one man with his arms wrapped around a large fuel tank venting bottle, the other carrying the four-inch pipe from the fuelling tower. Boot open, aircraft fuelling pipe clicked into place on one nozzle while the vent bottle clicked onto the other. 25 gallons of fuel go in in a matter of seconds. Sands jumped out of the car, wet with perspiration, and I got in.

It started to rain.

Leaving the pit lane slowly and carefully, I slotted into the general mayhem on the circuit. The brakes were cold and didn’t work at all. It started to rain on Riches, a fourth gear right hander, and a little on Coram at the other end of the circuit. It was a mess, and very difficult to settle down. Part of the circuit quickly became slippery, part of it stayed dry, and part of it felt like an ice rink. Into Riches the second time around and I could see the water glistening on the track’s surface, but it was too late. Turning in gingerly, the M3 slithered around helplessly. Hatchbacks buzzed around its hind quarters like a swarm of angry bees going for the kill. I was going so slowly I couldn’t get out of my own way. I was embarrassing.

Soon it started to dry though and I started to settle. Hatchbacks slid into view as the M3 overhauled them. Walton was there too. He was flying round in fourth position when a fuse blew, leaving the powerful Cosworth powerless on the right of the track at the start of Revett straight. I watched his attempts to get the beast started, aware of the crushing disappointment he and the whole team must have been feeling. Any outside assistance over and above advice would mean disqualifications. Outside assistance in the form of returning the leading Cosworth to the fray after it had ploughed into the field at the end of the straight early on Saturday night was not apparently an infringement.

The sun was setting and the evening promised better weather.

The BMW and I were plugging around at a steady 1:26, 1:25, and at that pace I was able to keep the car very smooth and trim. No kerbs, no drama and not much mixing it with some of the loonies who thought they were doing a ten lap sprint. I was being careful with the brakes too, having been slapped on the wrists for glazing the pads in practice the day before.

Despite a pace that was a little conservative compared to that of my two partners, the race bulletins showed that the M3 was holding onto the class lead it held when I took it over, and to seventh position overall. And it wasn’t getting worn out.

The Driving

The lap times we were doing translate to about 81mph average speed, while the leading Cosworth was managing around 84mph. The start/finish straight is taken in fourth the four-cylinder BMW engine howls up to nearly 7000rpm before it is necessary to ease onto the brakes just before the surface changes.

There’s no room for error in the first bend, Riches, despite the flat field beyond. Easing back onto the power, just missing the first of two apexes, brings you into the second, clipping it, then sliding gently to the exit. Then up rushes Sear, a 90 degree corner with a wide but bumpy runoff for the over-exuberant. The biggest danger is locking up here, you always find you’re entering Sear faster than you think, but the ABS helps a lot and avoids accidental flat-spotting of the tyres.

Ease on the power again, and the M3 will slide neutrally then oversteer away from the bend. It’s more twitchy with a lighter fuel load and too much power has you oversteering more and scrubbing off speed. Then it’s flat down the Revett straight towards the Esses, slip-streaming others, and being overhauled by the faster Cosworths. Into fifth at 6500rpm and into the braking area at the 200 yard board. Heel and toe down into fourth, and turn into the long, feathered-throttle left hander, easing on the power towards the end of it then on the brakes and quickly into third and into the tight right hander, sliding through with maybe a touch of oversteer at the exit.

Back up into fourth early, at about 6000rpm, and then into the ‘Bombhole’ a right hander with a huge dip at the apex, power through to the kerb at the exit, then start a gentle approach curve into the long right hander that is Coram Curve. Clip the apex about halfway round and let the car run wide to the edge of the track, flat out again by now, and pulling the car to the right on the downhill leg to the left right kink that is Russell, the most dangerous corner on the circuit. It is dangerous because losing it on the left hand entry of the ‘S’ can put you in the wall at the exit. At the same time, Russell is crucial to overall lap times and must be taken as quickly as possible….

Do that another 130 times and you have a three-hour stint in the box. I finished my one and only session with the M3 still holding the class lead and still seventh overall.

When I handed over to McHale, Gibson was elated to find we still needed no new brake pads. Gentle handling was starting to pay off.

Steve McHale drove an excellent stint and pushed the M3 up to fourth place. He and Bob Sands alternated in the car from then to the end, and the position remained the same, except for climbing officially to third overall after 12 hours (although at the time, the compute had us in second position).

The Sierra meanwhile hadn’t fared so well and had been plagued by mechanical and electrical problems. After the first five hours, it had dropped to 50^th place, last on the road, through breakdowns, despite putting in competitive times.

Jeremy Walton summed up the traumas of his own race.

‘Wearing a Sparco four-layer Nomex suit, I was fastened into the brilliant red Sabelt harness on the Corbeau competition bucket seat. All around me was the security of a comprehensive steel cage. Ahead, the Mountune 2.0litre Ford Cosworth engine growled dangerously through its short side exhaust.

Finally, the row of marshalls parted, allowing me into the chaos of Snetterton’s pit lane.

I had had more than enough of pre-event testing: maximum boost, sticky R1 BF Goodrich tyres, empty tank, warm sunshine, only to switch to low (legal) boost, heavily treaded BFG Comp TA2s and a heavy fuel load for the short-lived official practice and the actual race. But it was worth it and the car was never anything but fast, friendly, and satisfying. The only real thing to watch was the way in which a naturally understeering chassis has to be balanced against power oversteer, and the turbo lag involved in the process.

During the closing hours of the race, the powerful motor still hurled us onto the straights with enough power to swap ends easily. The Sierra shot past all but the toughest Cosworth competitors.

Piling into the long right hander, Coram Curve, among a gaggle of other race track residents, from the tiny Suzuki Swift GT is to fellow “Cosworthians”, I had time to appreciate the footrest the TCCS lads had fitted since testing. This I could use to help brace my body against the 100mph cornering loads that resulted from flying around the track.

From inside the car there was a grandstand view of wheel-lifting, squabbling front-wheel-drive hatches, and the battles between wheel locking Cosworth, leaving tyre haze, exhaust fumes and turbo-flames in their wake. It was worth all the hassle.

My education was completed out there. All those “I keep it completely smooth Jeremy, never touch a kerb, forget about opposite lock”, advisors of the pit lane had turned into frenzied killers. Could these be the same pundits currently occupying the track in front of me, their four wheels straddling the low kerbs and sparks flying from distressed underparts? You bet!

From a driver’s point of view, the first stint was the most satisfying, before the electrical interruptions of course.

The following morning’s session consisted of two hours at the wheel of a very tired Ford which by then had suffered several more dramas.

There was still the satisfaction of that seductive straight line speed though (an indicated 135mph), and trying to get round the endless t-circuit of right handers without melting the tyres.

My lasting memories are not of the eventual disappointments of the race, but of the thrills of balancing 2.0litre turbo power against straining BF Goodrich Comp TAs in the company of a bunch of equally deranged individuals.

My Results

Our two cars ended up at opposite ends of the race. The M3 won Class ‘B’, and took a spectacular fourth overall, in front of the fifth placed Mercedes 190/2.3 16 of Fagan and Dowsett, and the sixth placed Escort of Jones and Watts. We were beaten only by three Cosworths, including the winning car of Rob Gravett whose entire tears deserves hearty congratulations for a truly phenomenal performance.

The BMW hadn’t missed a beat. But the most impressive part of the tale was that it finished the race on the same set of Mintex M200 brake pads that it had started with. The front pads had worn from a maximum thickness of 13mm down to 11mm and 9mmm, while the rears had only used 1mm each! Compare that with teams who had got through over ten sets of morning and you have an idea of the achievement.

Sadly, the Sierra finished last, but through reliability problems rather than the speed of its drivers, who were among the quickest. Overall, only one Cosworth failed to finish, and that was crashed.

We look forward to the return match.

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The next two days promise to be 48 hours to remember; 48 hours to savour and enter into the memory archives; to be labelled an experience worthy of being re-told whenever possible.

For the next two days we are to leave behind the grime and traffic-choked streets of London, where single-figure average speeds dull the mind of the motoring aficionado. We are to venture west of that life-size Scalextric track, the M25, to experience the uplifting fresh air and tranquaility of the West Country. After disposing of the fast, but caravan-clogged A303 through Wiltshire, we will penetrate as far as Dartmoor. We will survel at that barren, yet bleakly beautiful stretch of moorland which attracts tourists in their droves, yet which frequently bites back at those who pay disrespect by failing to dress suitably for the sudden change in climate. Or who fail to be prepared for the spooky and disorienting mists that quickly descend.

We have fixed up to stay overnight on the edge of Dartmoor, at a place that we know from time past will provide us with welcoming surroundings and good food. Very early next morning, hopefully before the first rambler’s boot-lace is stretched tight, we will be at a pre-arranged spot on the moors, with Peter Robain’s lenses capturing on film the three cars’ foray to the South-West.

Perhaps not an unusual assignment in the diary of a car magazine; but what makes this job special is the company we are keeping. We are to drive three of BMW’s ‘M’ cars, the 3-Series M3, the 5-Series M5, and the now historic M1. Three of the best BMW’s ever made, and our 24-valve pocket-calculator may not have enough digits to work out what their combined value is!

Easily the most valuable of the trio is the M1, the mid-engined racer produced by BMW Motorsport GmbH between 1978 and 1981 for the express purpose of GT-class circuit racing. Only 456 were built, and the few that found their way into Britain at a price of £37,000 (all left-hand drive) now change hands for well over £60,000. And we are to drive a well-kept, low-mileage model.

In the mid-1970s, BMW Motorsport was being run by Jochen Neerspach, who wanted a car for BMW to field in the prestigious Group 4 and Group 5 classes. For eligibility, a minimum production run of 400 was necessary within a 12 month period. They also had to be produced, all of them, before any racing could take place.

The M1 was actually modelled loosely on a previous mid-engined project, but basically it had to be designed and built from scratch. There was some pressure to get the project finished quickly, too, because when the car was given the go-ahead, in 1976, Neerspach wanted it to makes it motor show debut in 1978 in Geneva, with a first race at that year’s Le Mans.

A tubular spaceframe chassis, covered by a reinforced glassfibre body, drew heavily on BMW’s Formula 2 experience; coil-spung suspension used double track control arms at the front, along with long, semi-trailing arms at the rear, designed to restrict wheel camber change. Steering was unassisted rack and pinion; disc brakes all round did the stopping.

Neerspach would have liked to slot in BMW’s then proposed 4litre V12, had it been available, but instead had to settle for a revised version of the firm’s big six. Ideally, the engine would have been mounted transversely, but the width would have created insuperable transmission problems.

The M1’s dry-sump engine was designated the M-88, and was similar to that of the racing CSL coupes which had campaigned from 1974. Based on BMW’s standard 3.2litre iron-blocked unit, it was bored out to 3454cc, and gained a head with double camshafts and four valves per cylinder. It used a Kugelfischer/Bosch fuel-injection system, and in standard form pumped out 277bhp at 6500rpm, along with 242lb ft torque at 5000rpm.

But the competition versions were to be rather more powerful! The Group 4 car (with bigger valves and a higher compression) gave 470bhp at 9000rpm and 530lb ft torque at 7000rpm. Group 5 cars used a smaller, 3.2litre block, but with a KKK turbo gave as much as 850bhp, depending on how far up the boost was turned. Transmission was through a five speed ZF gearbox, a ‘box with first out on a dog-leg opposite reverse.

In those days BMW didn’t have the capacity to produce all the cars, so given the pressure to produce the M1s quickly, Giugiaro was commissioned to style the body, and the design and assembly work was farmed out to Lamborghini in Modena. But Lamborghini ran into their own financial problems just as production was about to start in mid 1977. With no further financial support forthcoming from BMW, Lamborghini weren’t able to keep to their promise of two cars per week, so the whole project was rethought, and BMW arranged for the Stuttgart firm Baur to mate the body and chassis together, with the final assembly being carried out by BMW Motorsport. Although the car was actually announced for sale in 1978, more delays occurred, and it wasn’t until 1981 that the homologation quota was fulfilled. By this time, the M1 simply wasn’t competitive, and so in a sense was a still-born racer. However, in a clever stroke of face-saving publicity, a series had been organised during 1979 and 1980 in which Formula One drivers hurled the cars entertainingly round the tracks as part of the ‘Procar’ championship.

Our rendezvous in Fleet Services on the M3 (the road, we’re talking about), which means our first experience of the M1 is when collecting it from its owner Derek Taylor, who lives in Ealing. We arrive during peak morning rush-hour; the traffic outside his flat is at a standstill.

While manoeuvring out of Derek’s slot in the crowded car-park, the M1’s racebred character becomes obvious; the gearbox has a difficult, clonky movement (though Derek reckons his 6500mil car’s ‘box has still to loosen up), and the clutch is heavy. The Motorsport engine will run at low revs, but it doesn’t like it.

The steering has a poor lock, and the big three-quarter body flanks mean rear vision is decidedly blinkered. And the sheer value of the car creates a certain anxiety.

Yet as they often do when encountering low, exotic, and very expensive sports cars in a traffic-jam, other cars temporarily suspend their aggressive antics; a Brylcreemed, Next-clad rep makes way as we attempt a right turn before him; he smiles as our proposed manoeuvre turns into a wheel-wrenching five-point turn.

Rush-hour roundabouts are tricky too; no good coasting up in third, then flooring the pedal when a gap is spotted. You must select second – or perhaps first – well in advance, allowing time for a fluffed change through the difficult gate. You must then pick up the throttle from at least 3000rpm. No, in town the M1 is wasted; it’s the antithesis of the slick, well-mannered BMW, and it makes a Porsche 911 seem an easy run-around car.

On the M25, making one of its rare public appearance, the M1 draws a curious reaction. Other drivers double-take, but few seem to know what it is; most probably think it’s a Lotus until they see the twin BMW roundels on its rump. Maybe it’s just not pretty enough to catch the eye of the layman; the driver of a company 518i cuts us up in a bad-mannered inside-lane overtaking manoeuvre; he doesn’t give the M1 so much as a second glance. Second and third glances are what the M3 does get. Every status-conscious Yuppie loves the 3-Series, and even if few understand what the M3 is all about, they still take time to marvel over it. Some even want to know the price; will it be within their divisional budget?

Compared to the crisp lines of the standard 3-Series, the M3 is brutal. The wider, metalled wheel arches and the side-skirts result in fatter, more ground-hugging appearance; the squared-off bootlid spoiler is purposeful rather than graceful. Yet to most eyes the M3 is no less handsome; in a different way it has all the perfect balance of the cooking 3-Series.

Like the Sierra Cosworth for Ford, the M3 exists to allow BMW Motorsport to go racing in the Group A production class, fielding a competitive car. And indeed the signs are that the M3 and the Cosworth will clean up.

Homologation demands a production run of 5000 within a year, so originally this number was built within a few months to satisfy the regulations. Some of these are raced by the factory, and a few more by privateers, which leaves the majority to be sold as road cars. However, M3 production continues at a low level, and BMW intend to evolve it.

Originally, BMW weren’t interested in importing the M3 to the UK, but last year they changed their minds; left-hand drive cars are now on sale to special order at a cost of £23,550.

BMW say the M3 is far more than simply a faster 3-Series, and the first substantiation of this claim is that under the bonnet lies a four, not a six. Smooth and refined BMW’s small six may be, but it doesn’t have impressive torque, and clearly a big four rather than a little six would be better so far as frictional losses and weight distribution were concerned. A shorter-stroke engine would also allow much high revs – up to 9000rpm when in full race tune.

Hence, BMW used their staple four-cylinder engine as a base (the same one which is used in Formula One); the bore was increased to give a capacity of 2302cc, and the block capped with a 16-valve head which is a modified version of the 24-valve head for the M1.

BMW’s familiar digital Motronics fuelling I used, and road cars produce 200bhp at 6750rpm, with 177lb ft of torque at 4750rpm. With a catalyser, the outputs are 195bhp and 169lb ft respectively. The transmission is a five-speed Getrag ‘box with a dog-leg first and close ratios, though with top set for 21.3mph/1000rpm the road car isn’t particularly low-geared.

The normal 3-Series chassis isn’t one of the best, but BMW have determinedly made it good for the track. The front axle geometry and castor have been modified for improved high-speed stability; the front and rear anti-roll bars are thickened; twin-tube gas dampers front and rear are specially tuned. Wheels are 7-inch alloy, running 205/55 VR15 tyres.

The power-steering has raised gearing, reducing turns from well over four to 3.6 (can we have this on all 3-Series models, please?), and there are larger disc brakes all round, with ABS standard. Traction is sided by a 25 percent limited-slip diff.

It’s a racer all right, but creature comforts haven’t been stripped out; included are sports seats, electric windows and sunroof, and a trip computer.

If the M1 is a handful in traffic, the M3 couldn’t be more civilised. Certainly the unfamiliar Getrag gate takes some getting used to, but otherwise there’s little hint that the M3 is a thinly disguised racer. The engine fires at the first turn of the key, settling down to an even tickover that is all but inaudible.

The clutch is light and smooth, and the engine needn’t be revved hard to get moving. Slim body pillars allow excellent all-round vision; the neck-craning needed to drive the M1 simply isn’t necessary. No compromises are required in town.

The third of our trip – the M5 – is really cheating by wearing the “M” badge, for it isn’t a race specialist like the other two. Yet with a price of £34,850 it isn’t going to be anything other than a limited-edition.

Costing a hefty £11,855 more than the skirted and bespoilered M535i (over £4000 of this is accounted for by extra equipment), the M5 is nevertheless a Plain-Jane to look at. Only the BBS wheels shod with 225/50 VR16 Pirelli P700s, and a small tail spoiler, immediately differentiate the M5 from most other 5-Seires variants. Understatement is a serious business these days.

The M5’s engine is a direct descendant of that of the M1. Whereas the M535i engine is a 3430cc single-cam 12-valve affair producing 218bhp, the 3453cc M5 unit pushes out a massive 286bhp at 6500rpm. Bosch Motronics are added to the twin-cam, 24 valve head of the M1, and torque is 251lb ft at 4500rpm.

Transmission is again by a Getrag five-speed close-ratio ‘box, but without the dog-leg first. To the driveline, add a 25 percent limited-slip differential.

Naturally the chassis comes in for the Motorsport treatment, too. The front struts and rear semi-trailing arms have tougher spring rates and uprated gas dampers, and are assisted by thicker roll bars. The disc brakes have ABS.

At this price you expect luxury as well as purity of engineering, and it is supplied; the M5 comes with air-conditioning, electrically-adjusted sports seats, electric sunroof and windows, central locking, and an on-board computer.

On the M3 and A303 dual-carriageway sections down to the South-West, it’s the M5 which takes the honours. For a start it’s by far the quietness of the three; the Motronic engine retains all the silken refinements of the normal BMW six, and at all but the highest revs the engine whispers to you. No need ever to turn the radio up.

Comfort, too, is faultless. BMW’s sports seats are a thousand times better than the standard item, for they provide excellent back, side, and thigh support. The electrical adjustment is also much more than a toy, as it allows the driving position to be honed perfectly. Even the headrests are powered. The steering wheel – a leather-bound M-technic rim – is adjustable for reach, and is good to hold.

Then there’s the sheer power which makes the M5 such an effortless long-distance cruiser. 286bhp in a 5-Series body is a lot of horsepower, and overtaking is contemptuously easy. Part-throttle usually provides the necessary acceleration; a change-down is rarely called for. BMW sixes aren’t renowned for tractability, but the M5 has plenty of usable torque. From 2000rpm onwards flexibility is strong.

The motorway, however, doesn’t flatter the M1. With the engine inches from the car-drums, exhaust roar and transmission whine make for a noisy cabin. Neither could the M1 be described as a comfortable car; the low-set seats have no adjustment apart from fore and aft movement, and the short cockpit means the seat has to be as far back as possible.

If you stick to the 70mph limit, the M1 isn’t very happy in fifth. At this speed the engine still hasn’t reached 4000rpm, this being the point where it begins to sound like a product of BMW Motorsport. To prevent the engine and transmission chugging, fourth is the gear to use; the flexibility of the M5 just isn’t there.

The M3 isn’t as serene on the motorway as the M5, but for what is genuinely a road-going racer it’s a refined cruiser. It has the same sports seats as the M5, and what a difference they make over the standard 3-Series seats. Whereas the normal seats are flat and none too comfortable, the sports seats give support just where it’s needed. Adjustment (the electrical movement isn’t available) consists of height, tilt, and extendable thigh supports. As with the M5, leather can be specified, but that’s extra. The steering wheel can be adjusted, but this probably isn’t necessary anyway.

Initially, the unavailability of right-hand drive seems a drawback. But those familiar with the left-hand driver set-up is actually superior in terms of pedal positioning and footwell space.

The M3 driver has to accept more engine noise, however. With a lower fifth and less top-end refinement than, say, a 325i, high-speed cruising is less relaxing.

Off the motorway, the M1 has its chance to shine. For it’s on the more interesting A-roads that the best can be had from the Motorsport engine and chassis. Through fast bends the accurate steering provides superb feedback (three turns lock to lock; just right), and it’s at this pace that the weighting is best – light, but not excessively so.

Then there’s the delightful chassis balance that is rarely the property of anything other than a mid-engine car; a flick of the steering wheel sees an instant turn in, with understeer building up gradually and predictably. Ultimately, the M1 would be an oversteering car, though it would take a high proportion of the power output to wrench the fat rear boots off the tarmac. The ride is surprisingly good; far more supple than might be imagined.

Braking is superb; though ABS wasn’t common in the M1’s day, the big discs haul the car quickly down from speed, the pedal feeling solid and reassuring.

Contemporary reports credited the ‘production’ M1 with a 0-60mph of six seconds dead, and there’s no reason to think Derek’s car wouldn’t still do that. However, you have to work hard to get scorching acceleration from the M1, for the serious power lies right at the top of the band, between 5000 to 6500rpm. The engine can fall off the cam quite easily, and there’s a rev limiter forcing you to be prompt with the awkward gearbox.

But when the M1 is in full flight, it’s a wonderfully exciting car. The engine bellows out its race credentials after 5000rom, and co-ordinate revs, gears, steering, and braking is a rewarding experience which makes softer cars seem antiseptic by comparison.

Of the two moderns, the M3 has the more responsive and enjoyable handling. It’s simply in a different world from any other 3-Series. The higher-geared steering has good weighting, and though not alive with feel makes cornering feel far sharper than on a 325i.

Road grip is naturally very high, and there’s barely even a degree of body-roll when pressing through a bend. But the M3’s greatest chassis asset is how nimble it feels; the tighter the bend the more the car begs to be taken through it quickly. It’s not a difficult trick to unstick the rear wheels, but thanks to the taut springing and damping it’s also easy to guide the tail back into lime. Braking, as you’d expect from big ABS-assisted discs, is powerful.

The M5 loves fast, sweeping bends, and the up-rated, well-sorted suspension allows the up-rated, well-sorted suspension allows the big car to power round bends that could see less sporting 5-Series models trip up. At high speeds the tail of the M5 – normally the Achilles heel of the 5-Series – feels securely stuck to the ground. The recirculating ball steering too, has good weight and gearing.

Where the M5 concedes ground to the M3 is around slower, tighter bends. The swooping, sharply cornered roads in the middle of the Dartmoor told us that. Where the M3 can be thrown with complete confidence into a sharp bend, the M5 enjoys it less. The wheels lose grip earlier, there is some body roll.

Day two of our travels sees us driving on the western side of Dartmoor, and by the time we approach Princetown the narrow roads are awash, a good opportunity to see how the M3 and M5 behave in the wet. Both cope well, and there seems to be little of the inherent semi-trailing arm treachery that has caught many a BMW driver out. Both cars’ tails will ultimately go light under power, but the threshold of grip is much higher than normal.

The M3 may take the points in the chassis department, but when it comes to performance the M5 wins by a considerable margin. It proves in the clearest possible way that there is no substitute for capacity. BMW claim 0-60mph in 6.2seconds and 153mph maximum and when we tested an earlier M5 we recorded 151mph and, exactly as advertised 6.2seconds.

The M3’s strong torque allows it to be punched out of a corner using half revs rather than having to wind the motor right up to make an effective effort. But though it isn’t necessary to rev the engine, there’s a treat in store if you do.

Between 5000 and 7000rpm it has a fabulous punch; you’re left in no doubt that this is a racing car engine. The normal hum turns into a pronounced growl, and it’s this sort of revving that will allow zero to 60mph in a little over six seconds and a maximum of 146mph. There’s certainly a lot of vibration at high revs (specially insulating engine mounts aren’t able to eliminate this entirely), though few would say it spoils the car.

At our final coffee stop before heading back to London we perform the essential task of sorting out the paraphernalia which has been scattered throughout the three exotics and our camera car.

It gives us time to reflect on the practicality of the three cars. The M5, we all agree, makes fine high-speed family transport, and it looks discreet enough to avoid drawing attention. It’s the quietest, and probably the easiest to live with. It has given us 27.2mph, surprisingly good.

The M3, too, is highly refined, but it wouldn’t make such good day-to-day transport. It’s noisier at speed, and the rear seat is very cramped. But it too has been economical, averaging 26.3mpg.

This is an argument the M1 can’t possibly win. General refinement is really only mediocre, and the interior and dash are very much 1970s BMW, a touch plasticky, even. And then there’s the luggage space: a small compartment aft of the engine will take just one suitcase.

We each have our favourite out of the three, but we ask our hotelier which one he’d take if we hadn’t the money to pay the bill. ‘Just leave the white one,’ he replies without hesitation.

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What we have here is a story about a beginning and an ending. Think in terms of yin and yang, birth and death, the very rhythms of the cosmos. Think about the passing of a grand baton.

Or just think about exactly what’s happening. An exciting new automobile is bursting on the scene, at the very moment the car that would have been its direct competitor is beating an undignified retread.

The racy little M3 from BMW and Mercedes’ 190E 2.3-16 share a basic recipe: hot sixteen-valve four-cylinder stuffed into their makers’ smallest sedan bodies, along with extra-firm suspensions and fast-looking aero add-ons. Both keep one eye on European Group A Touring Car racing, the other on monied enthusiasts who are powerless to resist a personal hot rod from a German factory.

Yet these two cars come across as very different animals. We now know they differ widely in terms of success on the road (we loved the sporty Mercedes, until we drove it back to back with the M3), and apparently they’ll differ in success on the market, too: Mercedes-Benz of North America has unceremoniously dumped the 2.3-16 from its 1988 lineup.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised by these divergent fortunes. Even though Bayerische Motoren Werke and Daimler-Benz drew a bead on the same target with these high-powered missiles, they were aiming from two quite different positions. Traditionally, Mercedes cars have been stout and solid, competent to a fault, almost weighed down by their own quality and excellence. Powerful engines moved them, taut suspensions kept them in control, and firm seats propped up their occupants.

By contrast, BMWs have always had a sporting flair. Smaller, lighter, more lithe, and more maneuverable, they played the wide receivers to Mercedes’ power backs, the attack subs to D-B’s boomers.

Is it any wonder, then, that Munich could step up to a race-based sports sedan more deftly than Sindelfingen could pare down to one? At the very least, dealer salespeople in BMW’s American showrooms could speak the sporting tongue more convincingly than their counterparts at the Mercedes stores. So today we have a genuine, 192bhp BMW street racer sure to be in hot demand, and a Mercedes “equivalent” we can only remember (or go drive in Europe, where it remains for sale).

The M3 has clearly focused commitment to the fast-paced life. Mechanically, it blends some serious high-speed hardware with the solid 3-series base. And it comes out better – faster, to be sure, but also more responsive, better balanced, maybe even safer – than any of its 325 siblings. At $34,000, it is the most expensive of the Three family, but, remember, the 190E 2.3-16 sold (when it sold at all) for $41,150. The M3 may be the best product BMW offers in this country, especially if we give it points for continuing the marque’s tradition of appealing to the sporting spirit.

Little in this world tickles such a spirit like lots of sheer power. The 2.3litre engine was developed by Motorsport GmbH – BMW’s high-output, high-profile subsidiary, and the “M” in all those exciting cars. It spins out 192 horsepower at a lusty 6750rpm, and is almost in the modern motorcycle class for technology and tuning. If you’re a fan of specific output, and of what that tells you about state of tune, here’s about as close as you’ll get to 100bhp per litre without turbochanging. The M3 develops 83.5bhp per litre. A 3.2 Ferrari makes slightly over 81; an MR2, 70; a Corvette, under 43.

The iron-block engine uses Siamesed cylinder bores to make room for big 93.4mm holes: the short stroke of only 84.0mm helps the innards to spin past 7000rpm without trauma. Cast pistons are designed to trim weight, and they carry the wrist pin high to permit a longer connecting rod; this reduces rod angularity in changing reciprocating motion to rotation.

Double chain-driven camshafts ride in the aluminum cylinder head and operate the light 32mm and 37mm valves directly through shim-adjusted bucket tappets. Centrally located spark plugs and squish areas around the perimeters of the shallow pent-roof combustion chambers give enough turbulence and sufficiently short flame travel so that compression ratio can be all of 10.5:1, Bosch DME (Digital Motor Electronics) controls the ignition and the fuel injection. On one side of the head is a beautiful bank of four alloy intake runners, each with an individual throttle butterfly. On the other is a tubular four-into-two exhaust header.

The torque peak of 170 pounds feet comes at a high 4750rpm, further evidence of how tightly wrapped this semi-racing engine is. A five-speed gearbox with ratios that feel unusually close-spaced and short overall helps the engine run where it does its best work. In crafting the car for the US market, BMW changed its shift pattern from the European sport configuration, with first outside the H, to the arrangement more familiar here, with fifth outside the H.

While sorting out the suspension so it could handle the new speed and power, BMW’s engineers came up with a specification that brings new-found stability and dependability to the 3-Series platform. True, ride height is awfully low, and spring and damper rates are quite high. But ramp clearance and ride harshness are not affected adversely enough to make us want to give up any of the M3’s fine, firm control.

Front suspension geometry incorporates much more caster to give greater directional stability. Coil-spring rates are progressive in back but remain linear in front – simply because that’s what worked best. Low pressure gas-charged shocks are incorporated in the struts in front and mounted atop the semi-trailing arms in back. The shocks fight fluid aeration and its attendant heat fade, and provide degressive damping, to give way on extreme impacts and smooth out the ride.

Ambient air gives way, too, more readily for the M3’s passing than for any other 3-series, and by quite a margin. Front and rear aprons with integral bumpers, gently contoured fenders, rocker panel skirts, and a raised rear deck with a wild, angular wing all slash drag coefficient from a 325’s 0.37 way down to 0.33 – and that’s with fattish 205/55VR-15tires.

The rear-end treatment includes a fibreglass cover for the C-pillars that changes the roofline subtly, reangles the backlight, and blends into the higher, flattened trunk lid. That wing is a sturdy slab constructed with polyurethane over a paper honeycomb core. Quality, fit, and match of the new pieces are flawless throughout; our only complaint centers on a spot where the rounded lower edge of the new deck lid wraps over the squared shape at the upper rear corner of the sheetmetal.

Frankly, we`re also not sure whether the wing treatment isn`t going a little far for a road car. It struck us as awfully boy-racerish, with that thing jutting up back there. On the other hand, the rest of the car is unobtrusive and conservative in the normal BMW way, and in any case, this look will shortly come to be widely recognized as simply the M3 style – giving it positive impact in the important circles, whether it`s aesthetically perfect or not.

We may have felt more obvious on the street than we usually prefer, but the M3 left us with little else to complain about. Our time in the car began with a 600mile waltz across New York State and southern Ontario, returning to Ann Arbor from the press introduction at lovely Lime Rock Park in Connecticut. Such a freeway run – particularly in that part of the continent, where the climate is hard on pavement – should show the sport-tuned M3 at its worst. Well, if that`s as bad as it gets, we`ll take it. Yes, the car is a bit stiff-legged when hitting patches and seams at speed, but it`s not too bad. Yes, its engine note is a trifle more prominent than you might prefer, but it`s not too bad. Yes, engine and road vibration conspire to fuzz images in the rear-view mirror, but it`s not too bad.

In short, the comfort compromises the M3 makes strike us as minor and reasonable. For a car of its type, delivering what it does in the way of performance, it doesn`t really demand too much of the long-haul driver. For instance, the engine growl is obvious, but not offensive, even though it`s exacerbated by the shortish gearing (70mph takes over 3600rpm). Those excellent sport seats BMW uses in several of its zestier models contribute a lot, even on the Interstate. Never mind (for the moment) their aggressive side bolstering; they are perfectly shaped on the bottom as well. And the height adjustment helps place them in the car exactly the way you want them.

You`ll also appreciate the M3`s great seating – plus its zippy response and sharp maneuverability – around town and in the busy suburbs. You might notice the small numb spot in the steering right around center – pretty typical of most recent BMW`s we`ve driven but you`ll also realize that the shifter and the pedals are ideally placed, and that they work so sweetly you barely pay attention to them. Instead, you drive the car.

Of course, absolutely the best place to do that is out on the lightly populated back roads, preferably twisty, playful ones. Here, the M3 truly hits its favoured stride. Also, here, it most clearly demonstrates its superiority over Mercedes` similar but different 190E 2.3-16. The M3 is a focused, balanced, effective spots sedan; in comparison, the 190 feels a little unsure of itself, a little confused.

Both cars are comfortable, beautifully outfitted, and swift. But where the Mercedes feels soft, undertired, and resolved to plow at the nose no matter what, the BMW turns in much more crisply, gets more out of its rear tires during cornering, and is more responsive to the driver`s midturn wishes. It, too, is a basic understeerer, but much less determinedly so. Its somewhat more neutral balance allows so attentive driver to obtain attitude changes (generally minor and manageable) using throttle in the bends. A quick lift lightens the tail and tightens the front; go hard back into the gas (especially over 5000rpm), and you get a nice neutral drive out of fast turns, or a little gentle oversteer if the corner is slower and tighter.

Start working both cars hard like this, and you`ll notice a couple of other points the BMW scores. The Mercedes`stubby gear lever has light and lovely action, but it requires far too precise a hand – and too much attention when you`re working hard – to slot into the gates correctly. The BMW`s lever travels farther through a typical gearchange, but it goes where you want it without calling extra attention to itself. Also, the M3`s big tachometer is much more legible, its high-bolstered seats hold more snugly, and it communicates a clearer sense of what`s happening down at the tires.

Both of these sixteen-valve 2.3s are highly tuned, modest-displacement engines, both quite peaky by normal standards. They each have a little performance bubble just over 4000rpm as they climb up onto the torque peak. The BMW`s four seems to hold up a bit better off the peak, while the 190 falls off the cam into a torque pit more readily.

Looking at the torque curves for the engines confirms that impression. Althought the peak values are close – within five percent, and arriving the same engine speed – it`s clear the BMW`s output hangs in there better both above and below the point of maximum urge. This makes the M3 feel a little more flexible and accommodating.

As you would imagine, given the torque data and BMW`s weight advantage (2735 pounds to 3010), the M3 holds the performance edge over the 190. BMW quotes a 0-to-60mph time of 7.6seconds versus the M-B`s 8.1, and a top speed of 143, 6mph faster than the 190. Over the broad spectrum of actual down-the-road driving conditions, however, the two cars are quite evenly matched. Credit the ideal gearing Mercedes selected for the 190, and note that the BMW`s horsepower advantages are greatest above 6000rpm. Our testing confirmed that only when both drivers work extremely hard does the M3 pull ahead noticeably.

Of course, in larger race – the one in the marketplace – the BMW has pulled ahead solidly and for good. Disappointing sales and near duplication from the tamer six-cylinder 190E 2.6 finally killed the 2.3 16 in the United States. Yet there`s no question that the idea of a snarky-looking factory-hot-rodded sports sedan has enduring appeal. It might not make the ideal Mercedes-Benz. But look how it works as a BMW.

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1986 marked the first year all BMWs offered in the US were equipped with its butter-smooth overhead cam 6-cylinder engines, while the 4-cylinder was abandoned. So, it seems strange that little over a year later BMW has chosen to introduce a new 3-Series 4-cylinder model for (gulp!) $35,000.

Strange indeed, unless you happen to have driven or at least seen the new M3.

The name alone should be enough of a tipoff, but for the uninitiated, the M-Series  cars are a special breed built by BMW Motorsport (a BMW subsidiary), the group responsible for projects like the all-dominating Formula 2 engine, the ‘83 World Champion F1 engine, and the original M-car, the M1. BMW decided for 1987, for unspecified reasons (maybe to add some macho to its Yuppie image), to take its 300-Series Baby Bimmer racing and go after the Group A German, European, and World Touring Car Championships. (It’s already won the German and European rounds and has a good shot at the World.) To qualify, 500 units with race specs had to be produced. Enter BMW Motorsport, builder of the M3. Luckily almost half of these 5000 units are headed for the good ol’ USA.

Rather than starting from scratch, the consensus was to take a good thing and make it better. From a distance, the M3’s profile looks pretty much like your everyday 10 year old 300-Series Bimmer. But look closer, and the similarities rapidly disappear.

Starting with the 3-Series body shell, new steel doors, fender flares, and a rear roof cap were added; then a raised trunklid, rear wing, front spoiler, and rocker panels were reformed in fibreglass. The package is complete with deformable plastic bumpers and bonded flush windshield and rear window, all of which are body color except for the glass, of course. As for colors, only four are offered: red, white, silver and diamond black, and the finish is superb.

The running gear has undergone some serious revisions as well. Wider track, offset kingpins, and increased caster in the front, twin tube gas shocks, limited-slip, ABS, 11.0in/11.2in disc front and rear, plus larger, more efficient anti-roll bars and 5-bolt wheels all work to keep the 205/55VR15 in. steel-belted radials on the ground.

Trying to get them off the ground is the 4-cylinder 16-valve motor mentioned earlier. Touted as both a 4-cylinder version of the M5 and M6 motors and/pr a street version of the F1 engine, this DOHC 2.3litre is definitely not your everyday run-of-the-mill 4-banger.

With features like an eight counterweight rank, polished ports and chambers, headers, DME engine management system, Bosch fuel injection, this little screamer puts out 192hp at 6750rpm and still boasts 17/29mpg city/highway.

As you might have guessed, driving the M3 is an absolute hoot. The handling is excellent, the ride is stiff but not rough, and, of course, the BMW anti-lock brakes are top of the line. For our money, we thought the spacing in the standard 5-speed was a little wide, especially in the higher gears. For instance, redline in 2^nd is above the maximum speed limit in most states and top speed is 140-plus mph. By simply narrowing the gaps between 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th, to about 1500rpm between 3^rd and 4^th and 1000 between 4^th and 5^th, instead of 2200, you keep the little four up on the pipe and have a far more driveable piece.

Fortunately, while all this performance work was going on at Motorsport, the luxo guys were still hammering away over in the interior shop. The only option offered on the M3 is metallic paint, so all the copies come through full-boat. When sitting in the M3, it’s hard to believe it’s a competition-bred flyer: The seats are as good as they come – six-way adjustable with lots of support – a real leather-wrapped race-style steering wheel, and all the levers in the right spots. As you would expect from BMW, the instrument cluster is complete and properly laid out, no disco-dash here, and, of course, an eight-speaker stereo system, air conditioning, and al the applicable bells, lights, and whistles the American consumer seems to demand.

To show its confidence in the M3 (or maybe the fact it has 2395 more coming), BMW saw fit to introduce its newest by turning the US motoring press loose with five M3s at the Lime Rock racetrack.

Located in northwest Connecticut in the Berkshire mountains, Lime Rock park is one of America’s prettiest and most exhilarating racetracks. Though only 1.5 miles around, its climbing turn and downhill are as infamous as any, with a long list of broken race cars to prove it. Lime Rock also happens to be the home of the Skip Barber School of High-Performance Driving, and BMW just happens to be the official car of both track and school.

Turned loose might not be exactly the right term to describe what went on, but loose most certainly fits in the equation somewhere. For the journalists, the Barber School divided the day into four segments: the autocross course, the lane change, the skidpad, and the actual racetrack. As it turned out, you would be hard-pressed to find a better venue to evaluate the M3, or any performance car for that matter.

The lane change is exactly that, three lanes, separated by pylons with a traffic light over each. As the driver approaches the lights, the lane cop (a school staffer) switches the signal, forcing the driver to make some split-second decision. Not only is the driver taxed, but the transient response and brakes of the M3 are tested as well. The Bimmer passed with flying colors, with little body roll and accurate response. The ABS is invaluable in this situation, preventing rear brake lockup while turning. The journalists, on the other hand, finished with flying pylons (MT staff excepted). We hope their reporting is more accurate than their aim.

The autocross course is another test of transient response. Merely a miniature racetrack lined with pylons, is too is an excellent evaluation of driver accuracy and braking technique. Interestingly, the test cars were shod with two different makes of tire, and the Goodyears were clearly a half second quicker on a shorter course. Here again, on the autocross course, the M3 proved right at home, comfortable and predictable, even if the drivers weren’t. Predictable, that is.

As interesting as the flying pylons were on the lane change and autocross, they were nothing compared to the antics on the wet skidpad. Chief driving instructor Terry Earwood rode with each participant and gave spontaneous instructions from the passenger seat.

The skidpad is a flat asphalt surface with a 200ft circle drawn in the middle. The surface is flooded; then the fun begins.

Earwood first demonstrated how simple it is to hold the M3 in a perfect power slide for an infinite number of laps around the circle. He then took his victim out one at a time, and the results were hilarious, overdriving or overreacting being the most common mistake. With Earwood barking instructions from the passenger seat, it wasn’t difficult to dial in a little too much throttle or too much steer, resulting in slow-motion pirouettes and lots of laughter. But once we got the hang of it, the M3 is so well-balanced and sensitive to input that it’s like tuning a fine instrument. Staying on the line around the pad becomes merely a function of concentration.

Now that the prelims were over, it was time for the payoff – lapping the Lime Rock race course. For protection of the new Bimmers, not the mention life and limb, the writers were lined up behind a pace car for some high-speed tours around the hilly 1.5mile track. The fact that not one was lost speaks highly of the M3. In reality, and not to reiterate, the balance of the M3 is absolutely fantastic for a street car. The faster you go, the easier and more fun it is to drive. The M3 is incredibly forgiving, even close to the limit. And at the first hint of disaster, only the slightest adjustment of throttle or steering brings it back on line.

After hot-lapping the racetrack and getting comfortable at speed, the drive back to the city was akin to someone letting the air out of your balloons. The roads in Connecticut are beautiful and could be challenging, but even with fudging the 55mph speed limit, it was like walking down a sidewalk holding handrails on both sides.

Pity that so few people will experience this car the way it was meant to be driven, but even those instants on back roads at eight tenths will be moments to remember. True, the M3 is not perfect, and, true, it’s expensive, but, given its parameters, the new M3 is a great combination of looks, performance, handling, and comfort. For those fortunate enough to get one, they’ll certainly enjoy the fruits of their labor.

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“BMW is ‘only’ a relatively small manufacturer compared to other companies,” begins the Munich marque’s 1987 motor sport brochure, “but in touring car sport, it ranks among the greatest.” It is hard to think of the name BMW without associating it with a long and successful history in racing which culminated in Nelson Piquet winning the Formula 1 Drivers’ World Championship in 1983 with a BMW-powered Brabham BT52.

Back in 1972 BMW AG decided to form a subsidiary dedicated exclusively to the sport. Thus BMW Motorsport GmbH was born, under the direction of Jochen Neerspach. Since then ‘Motorsport’ has expanded to produce not only racing engines and competition cars, but also the legendary M-range high performance road machines, each car bearing the ‘M’ logo and the distinctive blue-violet-red stripes. Today, the company’s Preussenstrasse base in Munich houses 350 staff under the direction of Wolfgang-Peter Flohr.

This year sees a major shift of emphasis in the company’s racing programme. The Formula 1 turbo project is drawing to a close and the future rests with the company’s remarkable new M3 touring car model, which was homologated for Group A on 1 March this year. In European racing, the car has yet to be beaten on the track.

Why then, has BMW decided to abandon the high-profile Formula 1 programme and switch instead to touring car? “Our role as an engine supplier in Formula 1,” says Flohr, “was that of a manager who had to manage incidents. We could not take over command because we had no influence over drivers, or tyres, or aerodynamics. In order to be successful that was not enough. We could not come to the decision to start our own team and we figured that it was better to leave the field and reconsider where our stronghold was. We consider this be touring cars.”

“We could have financed a Formula 1 team, but the political situation was such that there was uncertainty over the rules and with the enormous cost explosion we felt it would be better for the make to enter a championship which is closer to the cars which we are selling in our showrooms.”

“When you analyse the cost-effectiveness of Formula 1 you see that it takes 40-60m dollars, and then compare that with touring cars; you could not spend that much money on a touring car even if you wanted to!”

Nonetheless BMW’s investment in the touring car world has been substantial. “First of all,” explains Flohr, “we built a racing car for Group A regulations – the M3 – and then we converted it to a saloon car to enable us to build the 5000 models necessary for Group A homologation. Secondly, we spent a substantial amount of money to get a competitive number of drivers and when you add this to the efforts of the various teams and so on and so forth, you can figure that we have spent a total of DM10m.”

This figure does not include any promotion of the project which BMW intends to use to bring about a greater understanding and recognition of touring car racing – for so long the poor cousin of the other major racing championships.

Things have not been easy in recent months for the touring car world. The decision to stage a new World Championship was taken at a very late stage and then, at the opening round of the series at Monza in Italy, there were widespread technical problems which saw the exclusion of all but one of the new M3s, which had finished the race 1-2-3-4-5-6-8 on the track.

For Flohr and the men from BMW this was a huge setback, but he has no worries about the future. “I am sure that within the next few months FISA and the FIA will find a solution. By making cars to the rule book, rather than adapting present saloon cars to the rules, manufacturers have put a great deal of pressure on the scrutineering and the stewards. FISA now has to use today’s methods of measuring and interpreting the rule book.

“The rule book is not strong enough. It leaves too many possibilities. If you say, for example, that component XYZ can be plastic, it is difficult to argue what plastic is. There are so many openings that a lawyer will look at the rules and say that you do comply with the rules as written. The problem is that the rules are meant differently to how they are written. It is a difficult situation, but I am sure that FISA is aware of it.”

“If I had to make a forecast about how touring car racing will go from here, I wold say that after the second race at Jarama the series will recover from Monza and will then become popular through the middle of the year. I see the World Touring Car Championship in the second half of 1987 really gaining and in 1988 it is going to be really interesting an successful. We feel that with Bernie Ecclestone in charge of the promotion, it will end up eventually like Formula 1 and I believe that some of the promotion which took place after Monza on behalf of FISA proves that we are going in the right direction. Of course it will take time; no-one can expect this to happen overnight”

“I think that you have to make an assessment as a businessman. If you want your business to work in the long term you have to invest beforehand. That is what we are doing.”

Although other manufacturers are moving to join BMW in WTCC, at present the men from Munich are enjoying a monopoly of competition. “Absolutely right! To have six or seven MWs at the front is a difficult situation, but I think as soon as the Ford Sierras come in , and the Alfa people get going and the Holdens come back, there will be tough competition and things will look very different. I’m not too happy with the in-house competition.” Some people have asked if BMW has made the right decision to produce a normally aspirated racing car and not a turbo, given the opposition from the turbos of Ford, Alfa Romeo, Nissan and Maserati. “It may look to the outside world as if we have made a mistake,” argues Flohr, “but I believe that the turbos, especially next year when the equivalency factor changes, will find it harder and in the future that touring car racing will move the same way as Formula 1 has towards normally aspirated engine.”

The M3 is undoubtedly the first of a new generation of Group A racing cars. To see the machines on the track beings a whole new horizon to touring car racing, and it must be remembered that the cars have raced only a couple of times and still need a great deal of development before they reach their full potential while the political situation in touring cars needs time to be sorted and the regulations and promotion developed.

The competition will come given time and BMW is keen that it should, but as he says “right now, it isn’t any good complaining. We were a bit disappointed at the decision of what was going to happen in 1987, but this is the year in which we all learn and upgrade the whole thing so that in 1988 the World Touring Car Championship can really be the event we want it to be.”

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M3. “M” as in macho, muscle, and more fun. “M” as in M1, M5, M635CSi, and M535i. “M” as in Motorsport GmbH, the elite workshop in charge of the most desirable BMWs money can buy.

The BMW M3 is a true wolf in wolf’s clothing. Prepared in maître Wolfgang Peter Flohr’s Motorsport witch kitchen with the help of Paul Rosche (engine) and Thomas Amerschlăger (suspension), this car is about as subtle and inconspicuous as a Doberman pinscher in a pink loden coat. It will liven up American BMW showrooms early this summer.

BMW swears the Bavarian bat-mobile was wholly styled in-house, but these drag-cutting addenda look as though they were created by the combined forces of Zender, Airbus Industries, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The tail spoiler, which seats about eight pigeons, obstructs rear vision. The flared boy-racer wheel arches are extremely vulnerable in heavy city traffic. And the deep air dam hates curbs, ramps, and snowdrifts.

But never mind. Together, these go-faster items more than compensate for the greater frontal area and the wider tires of the M3; they effectively reduce the drag coefficient from a poor 0.39 to a good 0.33.

As one might imagine, the parts that helped to obtain this impressive figure were not available at your friendly spoiler shoppe. They had to be specially desgined and made. Peter Flohr, managing director of BMW Motorsport GmbH, explains: “Take the fenders, for instance. They consist of steel, not fibreglass, and they are shaped this way to accommodate the ten-inch wheels fitted to the competition car. Examine the bumpers. Made of foam-covered, reinforced epoxy resin, they even meet the tough DOT safety standards. Or look at the car’s rear end. To smooth the airflow, to reduce axle lift, and to improve the directional stability, we fitted a more steeply angled backlight, a higher trunk lid made of polyurethane, and a more aerodynamic rear apron. These modifications may appear aggressive or even gaudy. But together with some less obvious measures like a nearly flush floorpan, they do serve a distinct purpose.”

When M3 development began in 1982, it was clear that the chassis, too, required special attention. The 3-series BMW has always been a tail-happy car, suffering from twitchy handling and a lack of traction when pushed to its limits. For a while, the Motorsport engineers contemplated curing these problems by equipping the M3 with the four-wheel drive hardware of the 325ix (due in the States as an ‘88 model), but in the end this was discarded as being too heavy and too fragile for the 320bhp track version. To obtain a better weight distribution, the battery was transferred from the engine compartment into the trunk, which now also houses a bigger 18.5 gallon fuel tank and some reinforcement material. As a result, the front to rear axle load proportioning of the M3 works out at about 52/48 percent.

Chapter two in Thomas Ammerschlăger’s Good Chassis Guide entailed a complete redesign of the front suspension. After increasing wheel caster to enhance the straight-line stability and the steering response, the chief project engineer developed new steering knuckles, fitted the bigger wheel bearings from the 5 series cars, and replaced the four lug wheels with wider five lug alloys supplied by BBS. Other improvements were stiffer anti-roll bars front and rear, uprated springs and dampers, and a recalibrated power steering that is quicker and more précis. Whereas the semi-trailing arm rear suspension design was taken over virtually unchanged, the standard 195/65VR-14 tires were replaced by wider 205/55VR-15 gumballs. The braking system was beefed up with the help of ABS, thicker, larger diameter discs, heftier callipers, and an accordingly modified master cylinder.

The body and chassis changes may not be exactly revolutionary, but the engine fitted to the M3 comes as a surprise. Dressed in matte silver, shiny chrome, and black crackle paint, it is a sixteen-valve 2.3litre four with “BMW M Power” written all over its rocker cover.

A four? After all the hype emphasizing the superiority of the six-cylinder motor?

Senior drivetrain engineer Paul Rosche tries to explain: “The M3 was primarily developed for motorsport purposes. It is a production racer of which we must build 5000 units within twelve consecutive months. Of course BMW cold have fitted a six-cylindr engine, but in the end we opted for the four-cylinder unit based on the successful Formula 1 powerplant. This motor is not only lighter and more compact than a six, but it also provides us with a notably higher potential rev limit, vital when it comes to preparing the competition variants. While the power curve of the catalyst-equipped version peaks at 7100rpm, the track engine will happily rev to 9000rpm.”

Derived from the 24-valve 3.5 litre six, the 2302cc M3 unit boasts state-of-the-art ingredients such as two chain-driven overhead camshafts, a five-bearing crankshaft, pent-roof combustion chambers, a high compression ratio of 10.5:1 squish lips on the piston crowns, centrally located spark plugs, a fully electronic Bosch ML engine management system, an oil cooler, and a bigger capacity light alloy sump. This sophisticated powerplant develops 200bhp in free-breathing form, and 195 desmogged bhp. Maximum power is available at 6750rpm, and the torque curve peaks at an elevated 4750 rpm, when 166 pounds-feet are at hand. The 2569 pound BMW M3 accelerates in 6.9 seconds from 0 to 62mph, and tops 144mph. Our test car returned 20.3 miles per gallon, corresponding to a driving range of approximately 360miles.

The purposeful, no-frills cabin of the M3 stands in sharp contrast to the car’s jazzy exterior. Inside, the top-notch 3-series differs from a bog-standard 325 only by the addition of an oil temperature gauge, a leather rimmed steering wheel, and a set of four deeply contoured sport seats. Dollar prices are not fixed yet, but we can do some educated guessing. The German list price of 59, 800 deutsche marks (close to $30,000 these days) includes heated, remote-control door mirrors, tinted glass, and power-assisted steering. Add about 9000DM ($4500) for air conditioning, metallic paint, sunroof, radio, leather upholstery, and power windows and door locks. That means we have to expect the US price for an all-inclusive 1987 ½ M3 to approach a sobering $35, 000.

The long-stroke 2.3 litre four springs to life at the first turning of the ignition key. When cold, it needs a busy 1000rpm to idle properly, and although it reacts willingly to the slightest dab on the throttle, there is no doubt that this is a highly tuned, thoroughbred powerplant. As coolant and oil are warming up, the clanking and clattering of the valves and the droning of the exhaust are metallic, yet hollow. Once the engine has reached its working temperature, however, treble and bass blend to a full-bodied melodious tone that, with rising revs, reaches almost orchestral quality.

Only as far as its running characteristics are concerned, the M3 unit never comes close to a good six; it is actually not even as civilized as, say, the sixteen-valve four that is fitted to the Mercedes 190E 2.3-16. At 50mph in fifth, the Bavarian powerhouse hums along with drawn-in claws, but the instant you floor the throttle and unleash more revs, the hum becomes a growl, then a roar, and finally a shriek. As the needle of the tachometer climbs up to its 7100rpm peak, the driveline goes through a wide spectrum of subtle but irritating vibrations, ranging from a mild tremble to a high-frequency judder that can even be sensed through the accelerator and the gear lever.

This engine is a fighter; you can feel it working hard to deliver the goods, Throttle response is lightning fast; its willingness to rev gives an impression of incredible effortlessness; and there is always plenty of torque at hand to pull you out of trouble without the need for downshifting. The strengthened clutch is light and progressive enough, and the Getrag five-speed’s gears are well spaced for optimal performance. But the competition style shift pattern is awkward (first is down to the left), and the lever movements are a bit vague and slow.

Thanks to the standard limited-slip differential, traction is good on most surfaces, but with nearly 200bhp on tap and relatively lightly loaded rear wheels, the car demands caution in the wet and through tight low gear corners. Mercifully, the M3 does without the oops-here-comes-that-tail-again attitude for which many BMW models are notorious. Through bends fast and slow, this potent four-seater remains neutral for a long time. Once the limit is reached, the car will either slide into a slightly nervous four wheel drift or enter clearly defined and nicely controllable oversteer. As you back off, the weight transfer will pull the nose toward the apex of the bend, calling for a correction at the wheel. The power-assisted steering is well damped, quick and communicative, and the wonderfully progressive brakes deserve full marks for feel, precision, and balance.

Surprisingly enough, the ride comfort has barely suffered from the taut M-Technik suspension setting. Like its lesser brethren, the M3 is still no friend of potholes, bumps, and level railway crossings, but it does cope well with such dreaded vagaries as crests, grooves, and dips. On the down side, we noticed a certain instability in crosswinds, annoying tramlining on poor surfaces, and a rather high overall noise level (engine, tires, wind).

The BMW M3 is a sports car in disguise. It’s a lot more expensive (and not a lot faster) than an ordinary 325i. it has no super smooth engine, no family friendly suspension, and even less room in the back and in the trunk. It also does without reclining seats, an automatic transmission option, or any trace of chrome. But the M3 has – at last! – a thoroughly convincing chassis, and it is well made, sufficiently well equipped, and ergonomically faultless. Most important of all, it is a lot of fun to drive.

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