2021 BMW M3 and M4 review: Fierce Competition

Singapore

OVER the course of one frantic, orgiastic day that I'll remember well, BMW put three cars at my disposal. Not just any three cars at that, but a wild bunch with 1,645 horsepower between them, which made the hours pass fast and the scenery pass even faster. For some perspective, in 2019, the average new car in Germany had only 158 horsepower.

Building unnecessarily powerful cars isn't just a specialty of BMW M, but its entire reason for existing, so you'd expect nothing less than lunatic performance of its newest trio, the M3, M4 and M5.

The subsidiary responsible for them began life as BMW's racing department, and was the Munich-headquartered group's shining star last year. While the Covid-19 pandemic shrank sales at Mini, Rolls-Royce and BMW itself, BMW M sold a record 144,218 cars in 2020, 5.9 per cent more than in 2019. Maybe people decided to live fast when confronted with dying young.

Regardless, this year ought to be another ripping one for BMW M, especially with the new M3 and M4 on the block. Both are halo models, largely because they trace their roots to a legendary racing car in 1986 that made BMW's trophy cabinet creak under the weight of a bounty in silverware, so they have plenty of credibility with motorsports fanatics.

But to anyone with a fondness for fast cars in general, the arrival of new M3 and M4 models has become something worth taking note of. Perhaps more so this time, because the enormous vertical grille that dominates their front-end styling makes them impossible to ignore.

A version of that gaping maw graces the face of BMW's latest 4 Series, so you're either used to it by now or you never will be, but the M3 is the only 3 Series model with that vertical grille, so it's never going to be mistaken for one of its lesser siblings. I think the shouty snouty works well on the M3, precisely because it makes it look like it thinks you seduced its only daughter, which is the expression you want drivers to see in their mirrors when your speedy BMW comes up behind them.

That said, these cars would stand out even without their gargoyle faces. The M3 in particular has gorgeously aggressive rear flanks that flare all the way out to there, in order to accommodate the suspension setup unique to both cars. The pair of them have roofs made of lightweight carbon fibre, left unpainted for all the world to see, and an optional carbon package means you can have the same treatment for the wing mirrors, rear diffusers, front spoiler and so on.

Their cabins are no less eye-catching, what with naked carbon all over, but more so because they have sporty front seats that are just exquisitely voluptuous, the better to lure keen drivers in.

For all that, looks are the last thing anyone would buy these for. Sensibly, BMW M sells only the Competition models in Singapore, which have a 510 horsepower engine instead of the 480hp one that powers the standard variants. The M3 and M4 also have a new eight-speed automatic, and if you're foolish enough to floor the accelerator for five seconds in either of them, men in uniform will relieve you of your licence. That's because they both slingshot to 100km/h in just 3.9 seconds.

That parity was by design. ''The target was to have the M3 as a sedan and the M4 as a coupe identical in terms of performance levels and all that stuff, including laptimes,'' Hagen Franke, the product manager for the M3 and M4, told The Business Times in a video interview. ''We wanted to make it a fairly easy decision for our customers. They just have to scratch their head and ask themselves, 'Do I need to have an additional two doors in terms of convenience or transporting more people, or do I love the one or the other vehicle more for its body shape?'''

Despite that, both cars feel slightly different to drive. The two-door M4 Competition has a slightly sportier edge to it, not least because its exhaust has a more boisterous voice and a greater willingness to crackle and pop like distant gunfire.

The last M4 didn't exactly lollygag, but this new one is altogether fiercer in the way it picks up speed, especially when the engine's revs build and all that horsepower comes flooding out. Yet, it feels like a bigger, heavier car than its predecessor, with its cornering sharpness slightly carpeted over by a layer of plushness. That's not to say it isn't mighty fast, and it has noticeably better traction than before, so it can blast out of corners far more urgently, and with less of a feeling that it wants to buck you off its back.

The same is true of the new M3, in that it's much faster than before yet feels much easier to drive. But what really strikes you about these fast BMWs is how refined they are when driven sedately.

They shut out external noise like proper luxury cars, and even take bumps without trying to dislodge your dental fillings. If anything, the M3 rides less skittishly over the road than the garden-variety 330i M Sport.

It helps that you can fiddle with all manner of settings, tweaking such things as the suspension firmness, exhaust sound, gearchange snappiness and even the way the brakes feel. Two special buttons let you store your favourite combinations of these settings, so you can programme your M3 or M4 to be a soothing commuting machine one moment, and a snarling monster for the racetrack the next.

Mind you, a go on the track would be just the thing to try out the various circuit-focused gimmicks in these cars, such as a new drift analyser that studies and rates your ability to hold them in long, tyre-shredding tailslides.

More to the point, it isn't possible to make use of 510 horsepower safely on public roads, so I will freely admit I never came close to testing the limits of the M3 and M4. Besides, BMW had installed a minder in the cars beside me, and it didn't take long for her face to take on a colour sort of midway between the M3's Isle of Man green and the M4's Sao Paolo yellow.

That says a lot about these steroidal cars, but it's clear what they offer anyway: flamboyantly aggressive styling that you either adore or detest, enough performance to give every sphincter in your body a regular workout, but also the day-to-day user-friendliness that you'd expect of any BMW. The difference in experience from behind the wheel is minimal, so choose whichever one suits your lifestyle needs better. The M3 and M4 are fiercely competitive, but not with one another.

BMW M3 Competition and M4 Competition

Engine 2,993cc, twin-turbocharged in-line 6 Power 510hp at 6,250rpm Torque 650Nm at 2,750-5,500rpm Gearbox 8-speed automatic 0-100km/h 3.9 seconds Top Speed 250km/h (290km/h with M Driver's Package) Fuel Efficiency 10.2L/100km Agent Performance Munich Autos Price S$451,888 with COE (M3), S$456,888 with COE (M4) Available Now