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Originally Posted by double_j
I'll qualify one more time and say the relationship applies within categories; comparisons with the x series or luxury models aren't relevant.
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When you put enough qualifiers on it, sure, it becomes a more-or-less true statement, but there will still be plenty of exceptions. E90 M3 easily out accelerates the E60 550i that was on the market at the same time, for example. A 128i will beat a 328i will beat a 528i. An ML63 while outrun a G55. Mustang GT will beat a Taurus SHO. Etc, etc, etc.
In the end there is little practical use in the observation that there may be some rough correlation between 0-60 time and price when you place arbitrarily constraints on the sample data set. The rule doesn't always hold, and at any time a new product can arrive and break the rule. Trying to predict the price of an upcoming product based on its reported specs is basically a losing battle. There are more valuable indicators such as its competitors pricing and the price of the previous generation model (if one exists) and probably other better ones.
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4 seconds is still 'super car' territory and will not be a target performance goal for the next M3 given what is acceptable in the expected price range and competitive set. And although not a defined goal, I do think that BMW will take the opportunity to charge more than planned if a sub 4 second benchmark is achieved.
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We'll simply have to agree to disagree on that one. There's simply no way they are hinging the price on a couple tenths here or there. They will price the car where they need to in order to meet the sale goals laid out in the original business case. They will balance the tune of the car to meet the performance goals while factoring in emissions, efficiency (and thus CAFE) and other limiting factors that effect costs.
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Like I said, 0-60 and price are not necessarily explicitly causal but they are correlated (within categories).
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Your categories are arbitrary.
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A different thought is that the next m3 will get performance very similar to the e60 m5. It's like we're one performance generation removed from the big brother in the line up.
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When you genericize the discussion from 0-60 times to mere performance in general I definitely have to disagree. The E9x M3 in many ways bests or matches the E60 M5 already, for example track with many times such as the Ring. It is slower to 60 on paper, and the M5 does have a slightly higher power-to-weight ratio. But in other metrics the M3 is in front.