BMW M3 M-DCT at Performance Car Of The Year 2008: Classic MOTOR

“SO, THE M3?” was a question met by the six judges with a verdict of shrugged shoulders and muted indifference.

This Performance Car Of The Year article was first published in MOTOR Magazine November 2008.

An hour earlier it’d scorched Wakefield with a 1:07.7 lap time, the quickest outright and a handy 0.5sec brisker than the all-powerful SL63 AMG. So why, then, the lacklustre response? Expectation had a lot to do with it.

So you’d expect this “world’s first” technology, as BMW spin-doctors describe it, to offer improvements in performance and usability. Especially given the $8309 premium ask. Well… For a start, its 0-100km/h (5.3sec) and 0-400m (13.3sec) proved slower, by 0.23sec and 0.03sec respectively, than we managed last year in the regular manual.

Different place and time, sure, but displaying a habit of wheelspinning through the first four gears sans electronic smarts, it clearly has issues with launching. It’s just too toey to modulate a clean getaway. Meanwhile, with launch control switched on, it bucked and moaned off the mark.

No less dramatic was the sphincter-clinching moment Ponch experienced when the BMW’s Glory Box refused to down-shift from sixth gear just beyond Coota’s 1000m mark, leaving the M3 to pull up from 234km/h at the end of the runway sans engine braking.

The M-DCT was just as stubborn at Wakefield, refusing to downshift on demand regardless of how hard you smacked the left paddle or how much you swore at it. (And while the newie is plainly a better ’box than the ‘SMeG’ predecessor for 80 percent of driving situations, the old unit was at least accurate and responsive in attack mode).

None of the local muscle cars – or any other PCOTY rival bar the Lotus (191kW/tonne) – comes close for power-to-weight, and the nearest Aussie, the F6, was more than two seconds adrift. Run back-to-back, it’s clear that power isn’t the M3’s superior trait over the HSV and FPVs, it’s the handling.

Don’t believe the marketing hype, because in terms of cornering dynamics and pace there’s daylight between the Aussies and this particular German. In terms of turn-in point, nimbleness, grip and adjustability, the taut and athletic M3 is vastly superior tool, leaving the other rear-drivers, by contrast, feeling bulky, wallowy and unfocused.

Few cars are this capable, yet perfectly suited to any driving situation. So no one was surprised when judges handed it a runner-up spot, the M3 romping into a spot in the PC08 finals without breaking much of a sweat.