A must-read article for BMW enthusiasts! Special thanks to S4CabrioFoxOne for the original link.
EDMUNDS: Finding the Magic in BMW's M Cars
By John Barker, Contributor
Date posted: 10-16-2007
"It doesn't sink in straight away. Shock seldom does. The very latest versions of the BMW M5, M6 and Z4 M Coupe just aren't good enough and they're heading back to Germany. As the engines fire up and the sound of their exhausts finally fades out of earshot, the major mind warp revolves around the star-studded casualties of the cut. Incredibly, the remaining group of BMWs has just one current-generation M car among its number, the new V8-engined 2008 BMW M3.
We're in the paddock of the Llandow Circuit, a test facility tucked down in a corner of Wales just a few miles west of Cardiff. The track opened in 1963 and since it originally was a grass airstrip for Spitfire fighter planes in WWII, it's as flat as a bad piece of English pizza, a little more than a 1.0-mile oval with a few corners mixed in. Because of this, our test loop has also included a few passes in the low mountains nearby that are so typical of this remote corner of Britain.
The mission? To find the greatest BMW M car of all time. The car that represents the very pinnacle of the M Division's achievements. Not the fastest, but the best.
If you ask Gerhard Richter, the vice president of BMW M Gmbh, it's the new 2008 BMW M3. "The M3 stands for our philosophy," he told us at the introduction of the car early last summer. "It is the best representation of the M character, combining the feeling of a racecar with that of a normal street car."
Surely it must be the car to beat."
The best of the best?
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