2021 BMW M3 Competition review. Is this actually the new M5?

[Music] well welcome to a new harry's garage video and today's car is the bmw m3 the latest version the g80 version and this has just come out i've been driving quite a few of the m3s recently we've had the csl in uh previously and then i actually had that m2 cs in as well so i've been intrigued where they've gone with the new m3 it's always an event when a new m3 arrives and this one well it sparked a bit of controversy mainly because of the grill and the look of it but that's right throughout the range we'll come to that in a moment but it does gain some useful numbers straight six twin turbo engine 510 horsepower that's up 60 horsepower on before metric horsepower and it also goes to 650 newton meters of torque which is up 100 newton meters as well on the flip side it's actually gained a bit of weight like all of us in lockdown it's gained 150 kilos over its previous generation the f-80 the other thing that's changed is the price of the car in here in the uk we only get the competition version the m3 competition an m4 competition there is a lower non-competition version for some parts the rest of the world slightly lower horsepower and that puts the price up so we in here in the uk 74 000 list the car you see here with a few extras on it 86 750 pounds that's pretty serious territory previous m3s listed in the 50s late 50 000 or thereabouts when it was last on sale in 2019 so a big uplift in price as well and it's also grown over the previous generation we are now 4.75 meters long that's significant and it strikes me it's almost m5 size as we used to remember it and that's why i got the m3 in i don't know why i like the four-door saloon version and i've also got the project eight we're not going to do a twin test at all but i've just got it in comparison just as a project 8 owner i'm really quite intrigued of how this car performs let's go have a closer look now it's impossible not to discuss the new look of the m3 and this grille treatment bmw have put on the m3 and the m4 it is very distinctive it does give it a very modern look weirdly i've got sort of used to it over the few days i've had this car but people do comment on it and i suppose that's what you want to do it does make all previous generations of m3 look sort of old-fashioned there's no mistaking the look of this car i get slightly upset when we sort of got these false sort of vents that isn't a vent just to mould in there but it's sort of so busy down here we've got the radar thing down there and i'll just put the the p8 there because i i'd like i've always liked the sort of clean look of this car there's no sort of missing it you know it means business there's very big grills there's a distinctive splitter why here there's is there a splitter going on oh there's a bit of carbon here and then we're back to green here it's it's sort of they can't stop help themselves it's all fiddle with bits we'll go around the side as well but um yeah quite a look as this m3 if you want to come around here and have a look at a bit more detail these um got the laser lights on this car i have to say they're very good the bmw laser lights are about a 1500 pound option really crisp light and then they turn out um in segments so you're basically on main beam and then it it sort of tones down as a car comes towards you they work really well wheels on this one we're 19-inch at the front we've got the michelin pilot sport 4s on this car i believe cup 2 the you know track day type tire is an option as well red calipers i think it's a no cost option to have red cap calipers distinctive design with the competitions m3 competition this is just where it all the design sort of they've gone a bit nuts haven't they with the sort of the design of the car you've got the seal extensions as well carbon mirrors but the standard carbon roof as well so that's on all m3 and m4 cars it's sort of yeah it's a signature of um m power it seems at the moment rears we actually go up to 20 inch wheels at the back slightly wide i can't quite remember what size they are but i've flattened up there's a text but you can see it's all odd here because they've tried to um it's a sort of bigger wheel and they've tried to do it with the styling here and it's not very successful i think then added this bit of plastic as well if you look at the p8 it's much more successfully integrated into the door there come round this has got a carbon pack on it we'll look at the seats in a moment but you've also got the carbon wing here m3 competition and just odd why has it got an electric boot you know if it's all going to be about lightweight this car decent-sized boot no way of imp there's no goo or a spare wheel or anything there's a battery hiding down there but i just find that a bit odd that they put electric boost on an m3 enormous great exhaust quad exhaust at the back that's been a signature of m3 for a while i just want to show you the seats in this car because they're quite something now this is all part of the carbon pack and you can see they're sort of pretty aggressive bucket seats they do save apparently 10 kilos aside over the standard seats but i'm going to get in um you've got to be pretty careful how you get into this car because that is a serious bolster and there's a funny little bit of carbon in the middle but why make them sort of electric adjustment if this car is all about lightweight oh god you have to wriggle your way out of them and then we go back to the size of the car that's me in in the front this is quite big i can remember when sitting in the back of a three series was a bit of a struggle not anymore the only funny thing is you get a you get an arm rest but it actually opens into the boots so the boot is then open if you flip down that bit i'm gonna pop the bonnet and have a look at the engine it's funny they don't have the catch anymore so you're not struggling underneath you just pull it twice on a bmw and open it comes right there's the straight six in there sit a little bit further back that you remember when we had that m3 csl in and a lot of structure it's a shame that that carbon hoop is gone and we now have this structural stiffness brought in by these bars here but they're all a bit ugly and how they've done it sort of just bolt on rather than that beautiful carbon that we had on well m2 cs had that carbon and the m3 previous used to have this bracing that was much prettier than that but what a unit this is let's say twin turbo and power will go out on the road but it goes revs to seven to 7200 rpm great engine really strong right let's take it out see what it drives like now you very carefully have to get into the m3 if you've ticked the box for the carbon seats i've got the crib sheet here what are the term it's it's the um m carbon pack so 6 750 for carbon bucket seats and carbon exterior styling yeah they are proper seats there is an adjustment for bolstered so if you've porked out over christmas or something you can adjust it and have a little easier time in the seats or you narrow it all up for when you do the track day etc bmw fare strikes you there is a bit of a button fest but this this is sort of modular this around the gear stick etc in the setup m mode auto h handbrake electric handbrake et cetera and the i drive that's in bmw's all over what is different though of course in the m3 is the wheel and someone's been listening because this isn't as fat as some of the previous wheels it's still a big wheel i think it's helped by being lever rather than alcantara and then it's got these red m1 and m2 buttons that we'll get to in a moment big paddles as well big carbon paddles and there's a sort of rubber behind if you look behind they're a different color they're nice as well and you've still got column stalks things like that which is good i mean it's beautifully trimmed in here but then it is an expensive car isn't it um being the four door the seat belt is just there rather than a real reach back engine start is a bright red button down here and i can't get over in on the dash i can see a green bmw i know from manufacturing to actually get the color of your car to appear on the dash there's some very clever people when they log in i don't know if you get a bespoke color it changes color but even the standard colors that's that's i've not seen that before where it's it's actually your car that appears on dash what else we got well we've got the usual things you've got wireless charging and a couple of cup holders i've actually looked in here what have i got i've got a little cubby hole and another charger in there yeah electric assistance it's that weird feeling of electric when you turn the wheel um this one has got comf now what's it now what do they call this technology pack which has all the cameras and the parking sensors etc um it sets off there's so many modes i could be here all day explaining all the modes for the gearbox for the traction control but basically it sets off in a fairly normal comfort mode you set that all up through the screen locks the car and also of course it has a zf automatic gearbox so there's no heroics moving off at the moment it feels vaguely normal but it doesn't feel quite so normal when we get out on some better roads so this just a little bit of a 600 annoying sound coming through nice sound sort of like slightly laid back sort of hollow bark then i don't use a lot of throttle in this car because it's so chopping quick we're in the threes to 60 in this car um speed limit is 155 it's that rich seam of torque that twin turbo motor yes it's 510 horsepower at the top in but peak torque is at 2700 rpm and all the way to 575.2 and you know 650 newton meters that's getting on once once you're approaching seven that used to be supercar territory and it's all thanks to having the turbos but it does give it a sort of a different feel having the zf torque converter gearbox in this rather than the dual clutch transmission that went before i've never really been a fan for dual clutch transmissions in a sort of usable sort of car even the bentley county gt it sort of stumbles a bit and the panamera did a bit as well so if you're using this car in everyday use and you've got a bit of town work and you've got the usual dreary journeys to do the torque converter gearbox is all right doing this sort of thing so the first surprise having lived with this m3 for a while was it sort of has a has a more friendly sort of character when he have got it all stoked up he does feel very definitely every day usable but i ought to explain some of the parameters you have on this if i go to home and i want to go to car and i can go to m menu there's the green car again and i can configure it in one so this is what this is these buttons on the wheels if i press this this is what i get three options on every in engine transmission chassis steering brake and dsc dsc tracks control is another world there's a whole depth of further menus for that it's sort of a good thing and a bad thing i initially thought it was going to be annoying because there was too many parameters but then you sort of do it once and then you can hit m1 or m2 and they're all your favorite settings and they're right there and you never really have to look at this again so that's quite clever engine in sport just makes the throttle a little bit more reactive chassis comfort they're the dampers that's sport and sport plus they're for german roads i think will stay with comfort for the uk setting it should actually read steering sport braking sport now i do have a grumble about the brakes there should be just one setting for brakes i have it i find it idiotic that they've decided to have two settings who wants actually a soft mushy pedal i don't know anybody who does in a car like this it should be just sports i'm going to press in one because i'm about to come out of burford and my little squirt up the hill i'm in normal drive nothing behind i was in fourth in automatic 30 miles an hour here we go right tracks came on a little bit there yeah quick quick car up there and uh quite a lot of flashing of traction control just when all that torque hit utterly dry tarmac and pretty high performance tires that have warmed up there's a proper go in this you can spec the m3 with x drive um that's coming in the summer so four wheel drive which is almost on the cusp of being needed right now my favorite bit of road series does there he's changing down there's this bubbly section of road it's all right really really quite impressive and the surprise of the seat so after you've had the shock of clambering into them and being bolted there i've done a lot of miles in this car and it's all right actually it's quite comfy much better than m2 clubspin and the other nice thing i like on bmw if you want to turn all the lane assistance off one long press on this button in the center on the dash and it all goes off the weirdness of this car is the amount of tech it's got obviously radar crews etc but then when you have it in uh radar cruise you actually have the same symbols you know from tesla etc with seeing vehicles beside you if you're on a three-lane motorbill dual carriageway it picks out because lorries you're about to pass the glory it's on the screen and you can take your hands off the steering wheel and it will steer for a little bit and then it will get a bit upset and start flashing little bits of yellow on the wheel here and then it will get really angry and tell you to get hold of the steering wheel again but it has a lot of tech that i just didn't expect to find on the m3 m2 confirm that means i'm in a different system i'm in manual is how i've got m2 set a more aggressive setup than i had in m1 let's go through the dip see anything to that yeah it's smothered that okay actually yeah it's yeah it's got some go it is very definitely rear dry [Music] i'm not short of performance this feels quicker than the 500 horsepower it says on the label and with rear drive a friendly chassis nice steering you know it does absolutely hook on you all your monitoring is the rear axle and how much you've grip you've got there but that's what i want an m3 to be right summarizing this car well it's nice to have come to it via m3 csl and then that m2 cs it feels a very different car to you though so if i start with dislikes i sort of wish it wasn't heavy yes i've said you don't feel the weight but you do realize you know 17 25 kilos is heavy and it will only get heavier with a four wheel drive etc second price this is an 86 000 pound car had i had someone tick the option for carbon brakes well it would have been 95 so you're knocking on the door 100 000 pounds [Music] if this had been an m4 and this spec and carbon brakes it is a hundred thousand pound car that feels mighty chunky for what i used to remember as an m3 and you're in with the 911 and those sort of cars um other dislike well i have a love-hate relationship with the seat i think they're just too aggressive at the bottom bolsters mighty impressive seat and then i sit in it for a while i'm actually pretty comfy but they are extreme seats choose with care if that's really what you want another thing you could say isn't quite right on it is something about the gearbox usual normal thing it's not obviously as sharp as a dual clutch transmission i think the only undoing with it is when you're driving quite aggressively and you're doing the downshifts they're not quite as sharp as they used to be with a dual clutch transmission the ping ping in they sort of slightly slow the gear change brakes this has got steel brakes on it and they feel pretty strong to me carbon you know i'm a massive fan of carbon brakes but i don't feel short changed with this car at all you see i like the way it's changing down there but [Music] then you can ride the torque out of the corner break this i'm not touching anything i'm just in drive it's down to second gear it's a very clever system in the third there coming out here in third let's go to the likes i like it's just such a distinctive car those the grill doesn't annoy me now quite so much because it feels such a different m3 that went before it does feel a model all on its own and a mighty impressive one at that i like the modern tech i've got everything i could need in here and i like the way i can adjust everything i've just gone to m1 to do the round ducks it then goes back to drive and i've got comfort dampers i really like the way i yes i've got all those choices but i only really need to look at the ones it's got jester control so me waving around in front of there has just turned the radio on including this car it's it's a very good m3 it's a different m3 you've if you're an old fart like me it doesn't feel like the m3s of old there are more position and lighter but it does feel like a very sprightly very quick agile m5 and it's almost this they've changed places a bit like the 911 has sort of grown into a different car with the 992 generation it's sort of what's happened with this m3 but it's okay just like it's okay with 911s because now we're getting cayman 4 liter gts's and things but we've got the m2 cs that didn't exist when the e46 m3 was around but it does today so this can allows the m3 to become back to this very usable four-door car with a serious dynamic edge but this usability as well so i think we we've got a win-win as enthusiasts and talking to the guys at bmw i said you have to limit the numbers because this is you know 230 grams per kilometer and everybody gets very upset about these things so no not at all we're doing so well with sales of the hybrid bmws like the x5 we have that the 30 40 grams so our average co2 figure as a fleet average is not a problem we can sell as many as we want to these m3s so it's a bit like again ka in and allowing the 911 to live on and do the gt3s think about bmw and all those very successful hybrid cars that allows this m3 to develop with a proper engine straight six twin turbo loads of performance so again we win win and it also means they can develop this and i hear whispers there's going to be a csl version and there's going to be a touring version so an estate version so expect i think some great things for this m3 i really enjoyed my time with him and much more so when i initially saw the pictures and saw the spec sheet of it and i thought oh dear this is not gonna be very good no not so after several days with it i've really enjoyed it so i hope you've enjoyed this video as well and if you haven't please keep watching keep subscribing more videos coming along very soon [Music]

Channel: Harry's garage

Views: 354,506

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Id: JucWxcoKD90

Length: 22min 35sec (1355 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 04 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/trashISoakland]

The newer grill is HIDEOUS

[u/[deleted]]

Butterface

[u/swotm69]

Buck-tooth Bimmer? Reminds me of Mater from Cars (Pixar). Looks like someone pre-kicked in the front.

[u/leadfootliam]

Every time I see an E46 M3 I’m reminded how downhill BMWs styling has gone.

[u/gumol]

ITT: grill grill grill

[u/jonnyanonobot]

Somebody make a bodykit for this thing that turns it into something more tasteful.

[u/DehydratedPotatoes]

Even if I was shopping for a car like this and in the price range, I'd have to factor in the costs to fix the front end of this monstrosity to the price.

[u/stolinski]

Am I the only one that doesn't hate the grill? It's not the best but at this point people are acting like the grill personally kicked their dog.

[u/ab84fan]

Yes it is the new M5. Based on sheer size and weight alone it is basically the new E60 M5. Sad to see what's become of the once iconic M3, a vehicle that was always light nimble and tossable on a back road.