[Legion5]

In my mind a true M car is a street car that is intended to be capable for use in motorsports.

The whole purpose of the M division originally was to homologate their motorsports vehicles so they could compete in racing series.

Therefore ONLY true M car right now would really be the M3 GTS.

Due to compromises for comfort, safety, price and mass appeal in the past decade M has evolved into nolonger being hardcore racecars but to being soft vehicles which were feeble competitors in modern racing. Sure they were capable of racing but were at the middle or bottom of ladder being beat by Mustangs that cost half as much instead of at the top. Currently M is evolving into vehicles that cannot even compete in racing ie X5M 1M F30 M3, F10 M5, F13 M6. These cars are not legal for any racing series due to their turbo chargers or the fact they are SUVs. The thing is that every M car generation is faster and faster on the nurburgring and on the street, so by dropping the racing pretense which they were feebly holding on to BMW's M brand is much better for it.

So are any lastest generation or upcoming M cars true M cars? No, not even close. The letter M now stands for Mainstream and not Motorsports, but the cars are faster and better for it.

99.99% of buyers will not compete in sanctioned and timed competetive motorsports in M cars anyways.

So yeah if anyone bothers to tell me XYZ isn't a "true M car" my response is: "Ok, it's still twice as fast as the last true M car in every way and you know you're jealouse of it".