Quote:
Originally Posted by tooloud10
Notice how everyone likes to bitch about the E93's weight, but there's little/no mention of the M4 being several hundred pounds lighter than the E92, or how people are convincing themselves that a better exhaust note is easily preferable to having 111 more lb/ft of torque available at 2000 RPMs lower.
|
I do tend to agree with where you're going, generally speaking. But having said that, I think "on-paper" and "from behind the wheel" are vastly different. With the F8x cars, BMW gave us a lot more (performance metrics; hp; torque; better looks IMO) from a fair amount less (weight, mileage, fewer cylinders). It's brilliant---on paper.
I don't think any of the e9x M owners however, really need to justify their continued ownership of the cars. They are the last M cars available with a spartan interior and limited convenience tech features (not that they couldn't be optioned up for the time). It's really, the last of the driver oriented M vehicles. It's among the last of the M cars with a special, M-only engine. People will go on about the S55 as being "unique", but it shares a handful of major parts with the regular series turbo I6 motors. I read through the aftersales literature on the S55 and it lists what's shared and what's different. The S65 is just a vastly more special engine.
I've driven an F80 on track and it's a brilliant vehicle. I even liked the DCT (and I'm a hardcore manual person). But when I got back into my car, there just simply was no desire to "upgrade". I don't care about the additional technology of more modern cars. I love the "honesty" of the e9x M and earlier cars. If I was moving from my current car to something else, it wouldn't be to a F8x. Don't get me wrong, the torque was very nice in the newer car, but that's about it.
For cars that I want to actually drive and enjoy the experience of operating, less (stuff) is simply more. I recently bought a Grand Cherokee SRT with lots of power, but also lots of stuff. Way more than I've ever had in a car. It has basically everything except a self-driving feature. It will even help you parallel park! For something like that, it's great. This isn't an engaging vehicle. It's a freakin sledgehammer for bombing down the highway in relative comfort. It's not a driver's car. It's the kind of vehicle that should have all the bells and whistles IMO. This is not how I view an M3. And because of that, my next vehicle is unlikely to be a newer generation M car.