What pulled up to my driveway the other night .....

[Steve W]

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine from Europe on work related business tells me he’s dropping by for a visit. He calls me from outside, I step out and look at what he pulled up in. Guesses?

[Steve W]

[Tobra]

Opel, BMW, tough to say without being able to tell what the car looks like

[Steve W]

Originally posted by Tobra
Opel, BMW, tough to say without being able to tell what the car looks like

You may be close! I can post more pics as the guesses come in.

[tabs]

Quatroport

[Deschodt]

The new M3.... V8..

[Steve W]

As in Maserati? Are you serious?

[onewhippedpuppy]

New M3. What do I win? It looks a bit rough, is that a test mule?

Anyone else totally underwhelmed by it?

[t951]

m3

[the]

Too bad they had to fall victim to the front fender side vent styling gimmick.

I thought it would have a clear coated carbon fiber roof like the M6.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

looks a lot like a Holden Monaro. very sad.

[mschuep]

looks like it has a chubby

[MotoSook]

Yep...new M3

[MotoSook]

[Steve W]

ding, ding, we have a bunch of winners. No fooling this crowd. V8 w/ITBs and 420 hp. Instant thrust!! It's actually the V10 with 2 cylinders chopped off.

If you look at the roof pic above, you can see where the trim fell off exposing the carbon fiber roof. The roof is painted in on this car for camaflouge. The little nubs on the front hood are actually where panels were siliconed on to hide the hood bulge. Now that the first pics of the car were recently released by BMW, the shielding has been removed.






The reason for the hood bulge:

[Neilk]

Did they just get back from some final desert testing in Death Valley? Engine compartment looks like it been through the Sahara.

[Steve W]

Yes, 5 days testing in Death Valley, the lowest elevation point in the U.S at 282 feet below sea level, where it was 137 degrees F. on California 91 octane.

Some other fun facts:

The new car is about 250 lbs heavier than the previous E46 M3, mostly due to increased saftey standards.

The hood bulge is necessary because NHTSA requires a 2" gap between the hood and the engine in the event of a pedestrian collision.

The front sport seats though heavily bolstered, have like 20 motors in them.

The exhaust has a deep, pretty strong growl from the outside, even when idling. When this car accelerates, you can hear the exhaust wail from two blocks away.

[cashflyer]

Good to see BMW keeping up their styling trend.

[Steve W]

Some other facts: removal of the cats and a remap is good for 30 hp.

The Motronic DME that controls the engine has over 10,000 maps in it to manage the fuel and ignition. There are so many maps, no one engineer can know them all, so there are many engineers, each who specializes in only a select group of maps. Most of this is to control emissions on every degree of engine revolution and cycle of operation to nil levels. Supposedly you could drive this car in a place like Mexico City, and the air coming out would be cleaner than the air going in - if you can believe that.

[turbo6bar]

Hope that mule has lots of trim applied to make it look uglier than it actually is. The V8, on the other hand, nice, very nice.