The original E30 series-based M3 cabriolet, circa late-80s.
There are five generations of M cabriolets, and they are all cool.
form. But this car is still so quick
that you aren’t really going to
notice it.
Once you’ve mellowed your
soul to the sound of crickets
chirping in the twilight, you
should head out to some quiet
spot where you won’t disturb
man or beast and give it some
wiellie. The 0-100 km/h time
takes a claimed 4.4 seconds
– about half a second off the
claimed time for the coupe –
and the car will run up to the
imposed 250 km/h maximum
in a glorious shriek of Twin Turbo straight-six cylinder power.
There is a special owner’s pack
that can raise that top speed
to 280 km/h, by the way, but of
course, with a 120 km/h speed
limit imposed here…umm…
well, it’s up to you!
The latest-generation M3 and
M4 models, of course, once
again employ a straight-six engine, after having gone the V8
route not absolutely successfully with the E90 series. Somehow
that BMW V8 never had the
charisma enjoyed by its rivals
from Audi and Mercedes.
Nobody builds a straight-six engine like BMW, and with 317 kW
on tap from the turbocharged
three-litre capacity, the thrust
is amazing, as is the sound
when you rev it up to the redline at around 7 500 rpm. BMW,
incidentally, state the EU measured overall consumption at
8,7 litres/100 km for the auto
(sorry, the dual-clutch) model.
In practise you’ll find you will return around 13,5 litres/ 100 km
if you drive it hard, as we did,
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