a day ago
A Rippin' Green Stick-Shift Machine: This Is the Modern M3 I've Waited For
Most auto writers are quite hard on BMW. Especially when it comes to the M3. It's impossible to shake our preconceived notions of what a 'real' M3 represents, though there's hardly consensus.
Ask a middle-aged dork like me and I'll tell you: Peak M3 arrived in 1987. Every M3 should reflect the dogmatic principles that the E30 established. I'd know, because I owned an E30 M3 when they were cheap enough to run ragged, well before the Bring-A-Trailer crowd turned them into bubble cars.
BMW E30 M3
Photo by: Petrolicious
In 2025, however, E30 M3s start at $50,000, and the new breed of owners are far less likely to drive them as Paul Rosche/God intended. So the younger members of Motor1's staff idolize 2001's E46 M3. To them, the E30 is mostly just buzzy and slow. And they're correct on both counts.
No doubt, if you're reading this in the distant future when I'm long dead, the staff of this very publication will idolize whichever M3 is currently about 20 years old. So it goes.
This nostalgia, which frames every conversation about what the M3 should be, often clouds the conversation about what it actually is. And what the M3 is—right now—is a class-leading bruiser of a sedan that's finally found the right mix of absolute pace and a sort of effortless, relentless quality to the way it drives.
It's the first modern M3 I love.
Yes, this is a screencap from BMW's Individual configurator. Yes, I forgot to take good photos of this M3.
Photo by: BMW
Those first turbo-six M3s (and then-new M4) were perhaps too sharp, equipped with a stiffly sprung chassis and a set of tires overwhelmed by the engine's punch of midrange torque. I once nearly looped an M3 Competition in the middle of an innocuous Ann Arbor, Michigan, intersection after turning the traction control off (as one does) by habit after starting the car. Later, I accelerated to catch a yellow light and ended up grabbing an arm full of countersteer to keep me from spinning into oncoming traffic.
I couldn't have been driving more than 35 miles per hour before gently punching the throttle. To that end, there's a better balance to this modern package than those early turbo M3s, and that balance informs every contact point a driver touches.
Of course, the most important contact point sits right in the middle of this M3: The stick.
Photo by: Jeff Perez / Motor1
My younger colleagues complain relentlessly about BMW manuals. I don't understand the fuss. Mostly, I'm just happy there's a brand left among the German superpowers willing to chuck an honest shifter in between the front seats.
There may be some rubberiness to this six-speed's action between the gates, but there's also a notchy assurance familiar to stick-shift BMW owners since about the early '90s. Crucially, there's no seventh gear to confuse your muscle memory like you'd find on the C7 'Vette or some modern Porsche 911s. Just an honest-to-Rosche six-speed.
It is not a perfect shifter—only Honda does those anymore. But it's a critical component that elevates this modern M3. Take it for granted at your peril.
The best stick on earth (right now)? It's the Civic Type R.
Of course, each of the three pedals underfoot is calibrated for easygoing manners. Individually, each pedal responds in a less-feelsome and more-linear way than classic M3s, but takes less effort overall—and I mean actual physical effort—to modulate.
That makes for breezy commuting, but also more bandwidth for operating around the car's enviable limits on a race track.
The steering wheel is just about the right size and shape, transmitting the heft of the car in an honest way and revealing more road texture than I remember the five or six M3s I've driven in the past decade. Not perfect, but better. Progress.
Kyalami Orange leather punches up the M3's rather spacious interior. My son's car seat fit behind the front passenger seat with a huge amount of room to spare, for both him and the person riding shotgun. That can't be taken for granted when competitors like the C63 AMG—with its complicated hybrid setup and underfloor batteries eating interior space—can't fit a folded stroller in the trunk and grudgingly accepts a car seat.
This is a usable, handsome interior space. I dig it. But then there's the exterior.
Photo by: BMW
I may never love the gawping pig snout, but I've never seen a better-looking M3 of this generation. The all-black 'Shadowline' treatment does the bulk of the heavy lifting here, pushing aside the visual impact of that grille and letting the paint color literally and metaphorically shine.
A brief moment to express my love for this paint.
It's a BMW Individual color called 'Dark Emerald Metallic.' It's perfect. Dark enough that under overcast skies, the color backs away into a deep Noble-Fir green. In direct sunlight, a brilliant metallic finish reveals itself, highlighting the M3's aggressive body accents with a diamond's sparkle.
Photo by: BMW
BMW has consistently offered the best colors of any mainstream automaker for the better part of thirty years (fight me). Dark Emerald Metallic costs $4,500 on top of the M3's MSRP, and it's money well spent indeed.
That option, among others, stacked about $25,000 onto the M3's $76,000 MSRP, totaling $101,875 (with the destination fee included).
That's not peanuts, nor is it out of line with the car's on-paper performance and versatility. Only a CT5-V Blackwing would turn my head in the segment (the Caddy is arguably an M5 competitor, but I digress).
I'd be plenty happy to ditch BMW's $15,000 carbon package, with its upgraded brakes and interior upgrades bundled in. I'd even give up the orange interior leather, but you can pry that green paint from my cold, dead fingertips.
Photo by: BMW
Call it eighty-ish grand then.
For that price, the M3 will do a lot of things on paper that'll give fits to more-expensive cars, but I don't think that's a useful metric here: The M3 has never truly been a value statement. You buy one because you buy into whatever ethos the car represents at that moment.
Now, in 2025, that means a car which neither reflects the E30's hardline stance nor the E46's handsome looks. This new M3 isn't as scrappy on throttle as its turbocharged predecessors, and its curb weight continues to balloon.
But with three pedals, a good-enough stick, the best steering calibration in a generation, and a coat of the most gorgeous green I've ever seen, BMW finally built a modern M3 that sent me to the configurator with lust in my heart. I think that's worth celebrating.
More On the BMW M3
The BMW M3 Touring Is Just Better Than the Sedan: Review
We Drove Three of the Best BMW M3s Ever. One Stood Out
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