It's been 25 years since the BMW M3 first hit the scene. During that time, the car has evolved from a bantamweight fighter capable of taking on heavy hitters of the sports car world to the yardstick that the rest of the segment is measured. In the process, it has shed its bulging, steroid-riddled fenders for smoother sheet metal and abandoned its four-cylinder engine for an out of this world aluminum mill with twice the pots, but its essence as a well-balanced sports coupe remains.
The transformation wasn't easy. BMW sent the car through innumerable trials on the tracks and trails of the motor sport world, and the mean little 3 Series quickly established itself as a force to be reckoned with on the grid.
It was motor racing that first persuaded BMW to prefix the name of its smallest model range with the letter ‘M’. The first ‘E30’ M3 was built in small numbers to legitimize its appearance at circuits around the globe, but such was the popularity of the concept – high power, low mass and a small footprint on the road – that the company was forced to consider a replacement.
The E36 arrived in the UK in 1993, being powered by a 3.0-litre straight-six engine. It stayed in production until 1999 and spawned coupe, cabriolet and, for the first time, saloon variants. Another followed in 2001, the E46, before today’s model was launched in 2008. Sales volumes of the M3 have risen with each new variant and the current M3 should become the most best selling M3 of all. The current M3 variant sports a V8 engine for the first time in M3 history.
It would be wrong to assume that the M3 is BMW’s automatic superstar, though. Those with long memories will recall that the 1993 M3, the successor to the great original, was lambasted for being too soft and in possession of poor steering. Although some may consider the current model to be too anodyne to do justice to the most famous single-consonant, single-digit car name in the world, variants like the GTS prove that BMW is still capable of producing a fast and rewarding sports coupe.
Have a look at the BMW M3 Tribute gallery