BMW M3 Competition review: what a way to go out

It makes me sad when people say that electrical cars can be fun, because of course they can’t.

Blaze of glory: the BMW M3 Competition

It makes me sad when people say that electrical cars can be fun, because of course they can’t. Take away the sound of internal combustion and the vibration and the weird torque characteristics, and you’re left with something that’s not even on nodding terms with fun. Sure, an electrical car can be very fast but so what? For thrills, I’d rather do 100km/h in a Sopwith Camel than 500 in a Boeing 777. I’d rather do 20 knots on a jet ski than 30 on a cruise liner.

And then there’s this: a microwave will bake a potato in five minutes and that’s very clever, but the end result will be nowhere near as satisfying as something that’s been in the Aga for two hours.

There are many people in my line of work who think electrical cars can be just as enjoyable as petrol ones. They are wrong. Because when we are forced by law to drive around in glorified milk floats, we will simply buy whatever gives us the greatest range or the best value. Cars will become wheeled fridge freezers. Tools. And the spirit of the car, its core, will be dead. Don’t believe me? OK, watch that car chase in Bullitt with the sound turned off.

Which brings me to the new BMW M3 Competition. There must be a sense in the back rooms of the world’s car companies that there’s no point going the extra mile in the development of superfast sports saloons because the end is nigh. In fact, we can already see the writing on the wall because BMW will not be selling the ordinary M3 in Britain, just the “Competition” version. And no manual gearbox is on offer either [both are available in Australia]. It seems, then, that the new M3 is a teatime bun for the UK, something to fill a gap until the reaper arrives. They haven’t even been very sensible with the price. Someone at a meeting just went, “75,000 quid?” And everyone just nodded and went back to looking at TikTok.

But wait, what’s this? The twin-turbocharged straight-six engine is broadly the same as it was but almost all of the internals are bigger and stronger and more racy, which means more power and more torque. There’s a whole new styling direction, too, with a Pontiac-style nose and a grille so large you could go on holiday in it. The whole car is bigger, noticeably so, but the essence of the M3 is still very much in evidence. There’s a sense that the body has been stretched to fit over the wheels, which incidentally are now bigger at the back than they are at the front. This, you start to realise, is not a coffee-break car that was half-heartedly thrown together on the back of a cigarette packet.

And then you step inside, where you are greeted with new seats – the best I’ve ever sat in. They’re even better than the ones in a Renault Fuego turbo. And a whole new dash that does all sorts of new things, such as setting the rules for your air conditioning system.

There is also a device that measures and then rates your drift. Seriously, you power-slide round a bend and it will give you marks. Not sure this sort of thing is, or should be, legal, but it’s a hoot to know it’s there. And a hoot to know that absolutely every single person who uses it will – moments after saying to their passenger, “Right, watch this” – definitely get a ride in an air ambulance.

That’s the thing about skidding on purpose. You can get away with it once, or twice, or maybe even 200 times. But eventually you’re going out in a blaze of splintering sounds and swear words.

It may, however, be 500 times in the M3 because, ooh, this is a fine-handling car. I didn’t much care for the steering set-up on the previous model – it worked well only in “comfort” mode – but much work has been done in the new version and it’s sublime. As is the grip. And what happens when that grip is breached. Maybe, just maybe, the gearbox is slower than the old flappy paddle manual but you have to be paying attention to notice. The thing about 375kW, though, is it has the ability to mask these things. And it does. Beautifully.

This is one of those cars, like the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio, that just glides from corner to corner on what feels like a wave of telepathy and pit-of-the-stomach excitement. It’s balletic. And comforting, because it means that BMW’s engineers are not going to sit through their final days shrugging and reminiscing. They want to go out in a blaze of glory. We can only hope other carmakers do the same thing.

BMW M3 Competition

ENGINE: 3.0-litre twin-turbo six cylinder (375kW / 650Nm). Average fuel 10.2 litres per 100km

TRANSMISSION: 8-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive

PRICE: $154,900

STARS (out of 5): Four stars