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Originally Posted by US///M3
I wouldnt call an M car that weighs almost as much as an E90/92 NA high reving V8 M3, with almost identical performance, with a 135i,335i,535i's etc. N54 With an upgraded intake and cooling ... a Gift.
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While I agree with most of your points, you're completely off on the 1M. It's the closest successor to the E30 M3. It's indeed one of the top M products ever produced and it's a shame that it could have been even better if it weren't for the limited resources and time for development. The 135/335/535 are far from being comparable in performance and in fact the 1M outperforms the porky E9x M3 on many tracks. FYI - the 1M has a 300# and +70 lb-ft advantage over the E9x M3. At one time I was a naysayer until I drove one and now I own one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PrimoM3
While I agree with you that the 1M was a huge letdown, your argument about the Corvette is shortsighted. What if anything about the Corvette is luxurious? And how about the safety scores? Or how about build quality? Everything in a Corvette looks like an 80's GE appliance and rattles like crazy. Yes, it's faster and lighter, but at the expense of the aforementioned.
The M3 is a great street car with sporting roots - it's also been called the benchmark again and again- but it's not a competitor to the Corvette, nor has it ever been (from the factory).
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BMW made a commercial decision to focus on the bottom line than staying with the roots of the E30 M3. The original was far from being luxurious. Also, unlike the Corvette, the M3 has inhaled 1,000# since the original; whereas the Corvette's weight has remained nearly identical for the same period. For BMW it's all about profit and how many units they can sell. They could careless for it's largest M market, the US, and that's why we don't get the special editions. To me Porsche knows their bread and butter. They're building lighter cars and bringing special edition cars to the US, their largest market. The Boxter Spyder and Cayman R are special editions with ~100 units each for the US market.