**The M3: A True Icon**

I've had the pleasure of owning and driving several high-performance cars, but none have captured my heart like the BMW M3. The current model, which is about to be replaced by an all-new touring version, has been a revelation in terms of its power, handling, and overall driving experience. While it's overshadowed by its more powerful sibling, the M2, I believe that the M3 has done an excellent job of distilling the essence of performance into a smaller, more manageable package.

One of the things that I think sets the M3 apart from other high-performance cars is its ability to balance power with practicality. The current model's 500 horsepower engine may seem excessive, but in reality, it's a remarkable feat of engineering. When you're driving in traffic or cruising down the highway, the M3 is still incredibly refined and comfortable, making it an excellent choice for daily driving duties.

However, as soon as you get behind the wheel, things change dramatically. The M3's adaptive dampers allow for a level of adjustability that's hard to match, enabling you to tailor the car's behavior to suit your driving style. And when you do need to unleash its full fury, the M3 responds with astonishing alacrity, making it one of the most enjoyable cars to drive on the track or in spirited mountain passes.

But what really sets the M3 apart is its handling in inclement weather conditions. The car's torque vectoring system and advanced electronic differential make it a joy to drive in the wet or dry, and I've found that it's far more forgiving than many of my rivals. Of course, this is where the M2 truly shines – but for those who prefer the M3's more subtle approach to performance, there's still plenty to love.

**A Perfectly Tuned Package**

One of the things that I think has always made the M3 stand out from other high-performance cars is its attention to detail and commitment to tuning. The current model's engineers have done an excellent job of identifying areas where the car can be improved, from the adaptive dampers to the suspension geometry.

And then there's the gearbox – or rather, the lack thereof. I've always been a fan of manual transmissions, but I understand that not everyone shares my enthusiasm. In this case, the M3's dual-clutch transmission is quick and responsive, even if it doesn't quite match the driving experience of its manual counterpart.

That being said, there are still plenty of ways to get around any limitations with the M3's gearbox. One of my favorite techniques for making the car more engaging is to use the adaptive dampers in soft mode – this allows you to exploit the car's front-end grip and torque vectoring system to maximum effect.

Of course, not everyone may share my affinity for the M3's more subtle approach to performance. In that case, there are still plenty of ways to make the car more exciting – but I think it's worth noting that these modifications often rely on creative thinking rather than outright brute force.

**The Legacy of a Legendary Car**

As someone who has always been passionate about BMW and its legendary M division, I have to say that the current M3 has done an excellent job of living up to the brand's reputation. It's a car that's both powerful and refined, making it an excellent choice for anyone looking for a high-performance driving experience.

But what really sets the M3 apart is its place in the broader pantheon of BMW performance cars. As I mentioned earlier, my personal favorite car of all time has to be the E28 M5 – there's just something about that iconic design and its legendary 286 horsepower engine that gets my heart racing.

Of course, not everyone may share my enthusiasm for the E28 M5 – but I think it's worth noting that this car is a true icon of BMW's performance heritage. Its combination of power, handling, and style made it an instant classic, and it continues to be revered by enthusiasts around the world today.

In many ways, I think the current M3 has taken some cues from its predecessor – but with a modern twist that sets it apart from its more powerful sibling, the M2. Whether you're a seasoned enthusiast or just looking for a fun and engaging driving experience, the M3 is an excellent choice that's sure to put a smile on your face.

**The Future of Performance**

As we look ahead to the launch of the new M3 touring model, I have to say that I'm both excited and nervous. On the one hand, it's always great to see BMW pushing the boundaries of performance and innovation – but on the other hand, there's always a risk that they might try to over-engineer or over-complicate things.

In this case, however, I think the M3 touring model is going to be an absolute triumph. By broadening its appeal with four-wheel drive technology, BMW will finally make the M3 accessible to a wider audience – and that's always a good thing for enthusiasts around the world.

Of course, there are plenty of rumors and speculation surrounding the new M3 tourer, but I'm confident that BMW has got it right. With its combination of power, handling, and practicality, this car is going to be an instant classic – and one that will cement the M3's place as one of the greatest performance cars on the market today.

**Conclusion**

As I look back on my time with the current M3 model, I have to say that it's been an absolute revelation. From its power and handling to its practicality and refinement, this car has exceeded my every expectation – and I'm confident that the new touring version will do the same.

Whether you're a seasoned enthusiast or just looking for a fun and engaging driving experience, the M3 is an excellent choice that's sure to put a smile on your face. So if you haven't already, do yourself a favor and get behind the wheel of this incredible machine – I promise you won't be disappointed!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enchris this is the news that bmw is going to be building a touring and a state version of the new bmw m3 i know it's already caused you significant trouser trouble why is it so exciting they don't make them very often when they do build them they tend to be quite flawed very memorable and i like that have they ever done them three wagon no no no this is it well they did they built one off didn't they they've got one people 46 yeah and i think it's just a car that one always feels would be a great bmw that bmw would be brilliant at this but i think they they've always burnt their fingers because they've they've when they've plucked up the courage to make one probably against all their better judgement and whatever the financial big forehead people say it tends to it tends to crash a bit when it comes to market because it's in the middle of a recession or something the timing is always unfortunate for them that e34 touring they didn't make many it was expensive you know handmade at garshing and therefore you know they never made any money out of them the v10 one commercially not a success again and i think at that point by then audi had become the preeminent faster state maker that was the home of the fast estate they they'd almost owned that entire space and i would have thought bmw's being counter sat there and what's the point in trying to penetrate that market when audi owns it or let's do our own it seems absurd the bmw would be in any way i think what i think what changed it is that the fundamentally most people that buy an estate car want something a little bit safer a bit more sure-footed they're predominantly bought by people with lots of money in france and switzerland and germany and italy that want to drive to ski resorts yeah and if you've only got a two-wheel drive option you're massively limited yeah aren't you so now bmw's got a four-wheel drive platform then i think it makes a lot more sense for them and i would have thought that a lot of the cost savings come in making sure that you decide to do it an early stage so that you know the body and white and everything's all there ready to go these cars become expensive when you've got to adjust something late in the model cycle to make it special what is it about fast estates we were just talking about fast suvs and how unpalatable some of them are but what is about first states i know you've just got a dog so you don't have to say that the fact that you can use it i've got a pan am sport turismo turbo that i'm using for a bit and i might i might end up buying it because i think it's just a sensational estate car smallish very long estate car i think there is there's always been a naughty surprise factor to a really fast estate car this idea that um that something that is utilitarian and ordinary and shouts family that is suddenly converted into being really fast and and there's a stealth that comes with that although of course the stealth thing went a long time ago once audi started blistering arches and yeah the new rs6 hardly flies under the new rf6 just looks like an animal doesn't it yeah um so i think that that stealth is kind of gone e63 is still quite stealthy you take the badges off they're quite difficult but then the moment you pull away it's quite noisy yeah they're fast so i think there's there's that aspect i think a long roof vehicle tends to look better than them than three boxes yeah um i just i just love them i love the practicality i'd always have an estate over the saloon version always and even though the you know the bodies do bend a bit and they tend to be a bit slower and they're not you know if you really pick them apart they can be a bit worse to drive yeah but i just i love them they just suit my life some vehicles just suit people's lives don't they well leave it there because you're getting a bit sweaty but they are as mentioned earlier there is a new m3 yeah m3 saloon m4 coupe they'll do a cabriolet down the line um now you haven't actually seen the new one have you we've we've shot it in the studio i've only seen that spy shot thing the camo car yeah i'm not sure very loud shirt depending on this video if we have we're gonna put some pictures up here for you to enjoy it yeah but i'll let chris's face just have a little so that's m3 saloon they've done it to the saloon as well i thought the student escaped it okay let's talk about this now okay so the first time you're exposed to it you recoil and you go what the hell have they done i can see the thinking behind it because they were just going wider and wider and wider with the kidneys to the point where you think we're gonna put the headlights now yeah and they had to do something else and the vertical the the longer vertical kidneys hark back to a different time for bmw and i think look better so you come back to sort of e21 three series and some of the older cars not on that scale no this is now enormous obviously taking in to count the fact that chinese seem to love massive grills and uglier and uglier grills and people are doing that what you've just shown me there is a bit harsher than i thought it was going to be we'll rerun we'll rerun the video because you were silent for a good minute and a half there but there's this okay there's a suspicion a suspicion for me lurking there that in a year's time once these things have been on the road for a year we might all go actually looks quite good and i'm okay with it it's a lot better with a number plate if you first saw the new four series or any of the spy shots without a plate across it just an expanse of grill there is going to be an aftermarket game in in basically de-uglifying it's like advantageous grill there's a company that will just sell your new grill yes bit smaller um how insulting that is if you design the buddies all right so the design is obviously you know each to their own on that one um but in terms of the car 500 horsepower three liter twin uh twin turbo straight six rear wheel drive i think there's gonna be a four wheel drive option yeah later but rear wheel drive to start with famously the current car or the outgoing car was a little bit spiky to drive i know you liked it i know stig liked it and a few other nutters out there but it was almost now correct if i'm wrong a bit overshadowed by the m2 which came along and it's just this lovely little thing and kind of did what we always went to so well it was those that bought them and ran them loved them yeah um there was this everyone thought the compact transformed it i didn't really i had a standard car for a year and i absolutely loved it and it was one of those cars that had a lot of character and had some obvious flaws that you could really get around if you wanted to all i used to do with mine was always make sure i had the adaptive dampers i ran it in soft the whole time and and i sadly had a dct gearbox rather than a manual in the one i used but as long as you were up a gear beyond where you thought you should be and just use the torque and match the talk against the traction it wasn't as lary as you thought where it got very spiky was in the wet when you used to just stomp on it like you would in an rs4 or something yeah then it was it did become a real handful so what does the new car need to do that the current one doesn't i think it was a really great m car that last one i thought it i think um it just needs a four-wheel drive package because now you've got so much power that in a in a relatively small saloon car 500 horsepower is very difficult to manage and i think people make these decisions based on buying decisions based on some weird factors that sometimes we don't take into account and one of them is what's it like to drive in the wet and the last thing you want i'll tell you the scenario that every m3 owner absolutely is terrified of it sounds so sad that you know the m3 owner is quite alpha quite confident he or she they come to the lights and it's just started raining and an rs4 pulls up next to it here we go and they think oh ready we're ready to go here and the audi just pisses off into the distance and they're just sitting there in a straight line with the yellow light flashing and that's enough for them to want to sell it straight away yeah so i think other than that i think the outgoing m3 was a great car i really do i think it was high quality inside it looked fantastic the saloon the treatment with those the way they did the front the fled rear arch the stance of the car on the road was fantastic it was bloody fast it went like you know what eminently tunable just needs to be a bit more of that and the four-wheel drive package will broaden its appeal massively and just for the record because this will give viewers a little bit more context on where your head's coming from favorite m car of all time e28 m5 best car they made i've got one but but they are is so special and so even now it's ridiculous what that must have felt like in 1985 286 horsepower when a really fast car had 140 horsepower so and i i maintain that's the best but i've i vacillate on all this stuff hugely i think i think the 1m is one of the greats i just love it every time i get in mine i just cannot believe how good it is and how much fun it is and at the time we all said that was a and not a proper m car and everyone crowed about the e90 m3 with this v8 i wouldn't i literally wouldn't on a e90 m3 to get near mine i just i think it's absolutely the 1m is a much more exciting car it's funny how things change over time the m3 there's a maturity about the m3 that makes it a probably a more pleasant everyday car than an m2 yeah that that slightly longer wheelbase the other thing is little little touches like when you're living with it the trim quality of an m3 the leather facings all the stuff the contact points the touchy feely stuff in an m3 is lovely the m2 feels cheap as you know what in places it really does so i can i can see why people think the m2 is the is the hero car but also look at the numbers i'm sure they've built a lot more m3s than m2s i think the m3 has been a real success the last one look the fact is they're still making one i thought we might not get another one i thought we might be told that the next m car was going to be all electric and not just anyone they're doing the touring exactly yeah i think i think we're blessed to be getting one and as long as you can just de-ugly it which is entirely possible then we'll be good so basically buy a new m3 touring remove the front endchris this is the news that bmw is going to be building a touring and a state version of the new bmw m3 i know it's already caused you significant trouser trouble why is it so exciting they don't make them very often when they do build them they tend to be quite flawed very memorable and i like that have they ever done them three wagon no no no this is it well they did they built one off didn't they they've got one people 46 yeah and i think it's just a car that one always feels would be a great bmw that bmw would be brilliant at this but i think they they've always burnt their fingers because they've they've when they've plucked up the courage to make one probably against all their better judgement and whatever the financial big forehead people say it tends to it tends to crash a bit when it comes to market because it's in the middle of a recession or something the timing is always unfortunate for them that e34 touring they didn't make many it was expensive you know handmade at garshing and therefore you know they never made any money out of them the v10 one commercially not a success again and i think at that point by then audi had become the preeminent faster state maker that was the home of the fast estate they they'd almost owned that entire space and i would have thought bmw's being counter sat there and what's the point in trying to penetrate that market when audi owns it or let's do our own it seems absurd the bmw would be in any way i think what i think what changed it is that the fundamentally most people that buy an estate car want something a little bit safer a bit more sure-footed they're predominantly bought by people with lots of money in france and switzerland and germany and italy that want to drive to ski resorts yeah and if you've only got a two-wheel drive option you're massively limited yeah aren't you so now bmw's got a four-wheel drive platform then i think it makes a lot more sense for them and i would have thought that a lot of the cost savings come in making sure that you decide to do it an early stage so that you know the body and white and everything's all there ready to go these cars become expensive when you've got to adjust something late in the model cycle to make it special what is it about fast estates we were just talking about fast suvs and how unpalatable some of them are but what is about first states i know you've just got a dog so you don't have to say that the fact that you can use it i've got a pan am sport turismo turbo that i'm using for a bit and i might i might end up buying it because i think it's just a sensational estate car smallish very long estate car i think there is there's always been a naughty surprise factor to a really fast estate car this idea that um that something that is utilitarian and ordinary and shouts family that is suddenly converted into being really fast and and there's a stealth that comes with that although of course the stealth thing went a long time ago once audi started blistering arches and yeah the new rs6 hardly flies under the new rf6 just looks like an animal doesn't it yeah um so i think that that stealth is kind of gone e63 is still quite stealthy you take the badges off they're quite difficult but then the moment you pull away it's quite noisy yeah they're fast so i think there's there's that aspect i think a long roof vehicle tends to look better than them than three boxes yeah um i just i just love them i love the practicality i'd always have an estate over the saloon version always and even though the you know the bodies do bend a bit and they tend to be a bit slower and they're not you know if you really pick them apart they can be a bit worse to drive yeah but i just i love them they just suit my life some vehicles just suit people's lives don't they well leave it there because you're getting a bit sweaty but they are as mentioned earlier there is a new m3 yeah m3 saloon m4 coupe they'll do a cabriolet down the line um now you haven't actually seen the new one have you we've we've shot it in the studio i've only seen that spy shot thing the camo car yeah i'm not sure very loud shirt depending on this video if we have we're gonna put some pictures up here for you to enjoy it yeah but i'll let chris's face just have a little so that's m3 saloon they've done it to the saloon as well i thought the student escaped it okay let's talk about this now okay so the first time you're exposed to it you recoil and you go what the hell have they done i can see the thinking behind it because they were just going wider and wider and wider with the kidneys to the point where you think we're gonna put the headlights now yeah and they had to do something else and the vertical the the longer vertical kidneys hark back to a different time for bmw and i think look better so you come back to sort of e21 three series and some of the older cars not on that scale no this is now enormous obviously taking in to count the fact that chinese seem to love massive grills and uglier and uglier grills and people are doing that what you've just shown me there is a bit harsher than i thought it was going to be we'll rerun we'll rerun the video because you were silent for a good minute and a half there but there's this okay there's a suspicion a suspicion for me lurking there that in a year's time once these things have been on the road for a year we might all go actually looks quite good and i'm okay with it it's a lot better with a number plate if you first saw the new four series or any of the spy shots without a plate across it just an expanse of grill there is going to be an aftermarket game in in basically de-uglifying it's like advantageous grill there's a company that will just sell your new grill yes bit smaller um how insulting that is if you design the buddies all right so the design is obviously you know each to their own on that one um but in terms of the car 500 horsepower three liter twin uh twin turbo straight six rear wheel drive i think there's gonna be a four wheel drive option yeah later but rear wheel drive to start with famously the current car or the outgoing car was a little bit spiky to drive i know you liked it i know stig liked it and a few other nutters out there but it was almost now correct if i'm wrong a bit overshadowed by the m2 which came along and it's just this lovely little thing and kind of did what we always went to so well it was those that bought them and ran them loved them yeah um there was this everyone thought the compact transformed it i didn't really i had a standard car for a year and i absolutely loved it and it was one of those cars that had a lot of character and had some obvious flaws that you could really get around if you wanted to all i used to do with mine was always make sure i had the adaptive dampers i ran it in soft the whole time and and i sadly had a dct gearbox rather than a manual in the one i used but as long as you were up a gear beyond where you thought you should be and just use the torque and match the talk against the traction it wasn't as lary as you thought where it got very spiky was in the wet when you used to just stomp on it like you would in an rs4 or something yeah then it was it did become a real handful so what does the new car need to do that the current one doesn't i think it was a really great m car that last one i thought it i think um it just needs a four-wheel drive package because now you've got so much power that in a in a relatively small saloon car 500 horsepower is very difficult to manage and i think people make these decisions based on buying decisions based on some weird factors that sometimes we don't take into account and one of them is what's it like to drive in the wet and the last thing you want i'll tell you the scenario that every m3 owner absolutely is terrified of it sounds so sad that you know the m3 owner is quite alpha quite confident he or she they come to the lights and it's just started raining and an rs4 pulls up next to it here we go and they think oh ready we're ready to go here and the audi just pisses off into the distance and they're just sitting there in a straight line with the yellow light flashing and that's enough for them to want to sell it straight away yeah so i think other than that i think the outgoing m3 was a great car i really do i think it was high quality inside it looked fantastic the saloon the treatment with those the way they did the front the fled rear arch the stance of the car on the road was fantastic it was bloody fast it went like you know what eminently tunable just needs to be a bit more of that and the four-wheel drive package will broaden its appeal massively and just for the record because this will give viewers a little bit more context on where your head's coming from favorite m car of all time e28 m5 best car they made i've got one but but they are is so special and so even now it's ridiculous what that must have felt like in 1985 286 horsepower when a really fast car had 140 horsepower so and i i maintain that's the best but i've i vacillate on all this stuff hugely i think i think the 1m is one of the greats i just love it every time i get in mine i just cannot believe how good it is and how much fun it is and at the time we all said that was a and not a proper m car and everyone crowed about the e90 m3 with this v8 i wouldn't i literally wouldn't on a e90 m3 to get near mine i just i think it's absolutely the 1m is a much more exciting car it's funny how things change over time the m3 there's a maturity about the m3 that makes it a probably a more pleasant everyday car than an m2 yeah that that slightly longer wheelbase the other thing is little little touches like when you're living with it the trim quality of an m3 the leather facings all the stuff the contact points the touchy feely stuff in an m3 is lovely the m2 feels cheap as you know what in places it really does so i can i can see why people think the m2 is the is the hero car but also look at the numbers i'm sure they've built a lot more m3s than m2s i think the m3 has been a real success the last one look the fact is they're still making one i thought we might not get another one i thought we might be told that the next m car was going to be all electric and not just anyone they're doing the touring exactly yeah i think i think we're blessed to be getting one and as long as you can just de-ugly it which is entirely possible then we'll be good so basically buy a new m3 touring remove the front end\n"