BMW: Peak performer

By ALASTAIR SLOANE

Olympic sprint champion Maurice Green runs the 100m in 9.79s. That's a leg-pumping 25m every 2.44s. The 3-litre V10 engine in the Williams Formula One car has legs too, or pistons.

At a maximum engine speed of 18,000 rpm, each piston is moving up and down at 25m every second, or 100m every 4s.

Same with the legs in the latest BMW M3 engine, a 3.2-litre straight-six. At a red-line 8000 rpm, each piston is travelling 24m every second, or 100m every 4.16s.

This comparison serves only to show that the M3 engine has Formula One bloodlines - and that its legs are travelling more than twice as fast as Green's.

The new M3 coupe is one of the most desirable cars in the world - faster, safer, more technically advanced and more user-friendly than ever.

It is so sought-after that BMW New Zealand can't get enough and buyers must join a waiting list.

"The news of just how good the new M3 is seems to have travelled quickly," says the company's marketing manager Mark McCutcheon.

"The M3 represents the very pinnacle of our current technology for performance cars.

"There have been buyers on waiting lists since the first design studies were shown around auto shows in Europe and America, and this strong demand is likely to continue."

The lure is obvious. The car looks fast and furious, like it owns the road. Sometimes it does, with the power dome in the aluminium bonnet, modified kidney grille, front air dam, 18-inch wheels, flared guards, and muscular stance an intimidating presence in rear-view mirrors, like the truck in the movie Duel.

Some drivers want to move over and gawk as it goes by. Some want to speed up, to challenge it. Some couldn't care less.

One fellow took a peek inside when it was parked. "It just looked fast," he said. "When I saw that it had a manual gear lever I knew that it was."

What makes the car get up and go is an all-new, 24-valve, 3.2-litre (3246cc) straight-six engine, producing 252kw at 7900 rpm and 365Nm at 4900 rpm, up 6.9 per cent in power and 4.3 per in torque over the outgoing 3.2-litre (3201cc) M3.

The engine is also lighter by 6 per cent and has a lower centre of gravity. It breathes better than ever and exhaust emissions are also cleaner than ever, surpassing stringent California standards.

The tachometer in the instrument cluster features "warm-up" indicators pioneered on the big brother M5. At start-up, orange light-emitting diodes warn not to exceed 4000 rpm. As it warms up the lights go out until there is one orange LED before 8000 rpm and a red light beyond. This is when the car can be let loose.

What helps to put the power on the road is a six-speed manual gearbox and a 32-bit engine management system - developed by BMW's motorsport division - which performs 25 million calculations a second, keeping ignition timing, fuel injection and a host of other functions in tune.

What keeps the car on the straight and narrow is an ideal 50:50 front/rear weight split, a super-stiff chassis sitting on MacPherson struts in the front and a Z-arm suspension setup in the rear, and a limited-slip differential, called the M-Variable.

This unit senses differences in rear wheel speeds and instantly slows rotation of the wheel with less grip, faster than anything Flash Gordon could do. It can lock a spinning wheel to the point where drive is transmitted to just one wheel.

This can happen when the car is being slung out of a corner, something on which the M3 and its self-sealing tyres thrives.

The M-Variable differential is backed up by electronic systems to aid traction, cornering and braking - things to help stop the careless driver from turning the car on its ear.

The feature of the engine is its flexibility - more than 80 per cent of torque is available from 2000 rpm - and the way it sends the car surging forward, building on one gear after another through the variable valve timing system towards 8000 rpm and 260 km/h.

It will sprint to 100 km/h and second gear in 5.2s. More to the point, it will go from 80 to 125 km/h in 5.3s in fourth gear, ideal oomph for overtaking. At 100 km/h, the brakes - similar in size to those of the M5 - will stop the car in 2.6s.

The ride is obviously firm, and the handling is exemplary. So is the car's ability to change direction at speed, when stresses on body control and suspension movements pass the most severe tests.

"As always," says McCutcheon, "performance for BMW is about all aspects of a car's use, not simply the engine. The chassis and suspension have been developed to be every bit the equal of the engine."

The M3's interior is typical BMW, available with six colour leather options or a mix of leather and cloth and leather and alcantara.

The driver's sports seat adjusts every which way for a comfortable driving position, using air chambers to fine-tune settings.

A new M-style multi-function steering wheel with a thick, padded leather rim, M stitching and thumb supports is standard. M3 door treads and an illuminated gear knob highlighting the six-speed pattern are also standard.

The M3 is chock-a-block with safety and comfort features and an onboard computer calculates fuel consumption and range, average speed and outside temperature.

Downside? The steering doesn't feel as communicative as the previous M3, or the delightful 320 turbo-diesel for that matter.

The clutch pedal can be demanding and there is a hint of driveline shunt at low speeds.

The driver must lift his or her left foot high off the floor and go deep on the clutch to change gears. This can get clumsy in a high-performance car and is a long way from the slick heel-and-toe action of the Alfa Romeo 156.

A sequential six-speed gearbox, said to be the best in the world outside the paddle-shifters of Formula One, is now available in New Zealand.