Thats the issue with the M3 on paper it seems spot on, great engine at a similar weight to the S54 with 2 more cylinders. It sounds the balls too and the car actually doesn't weigh a great deal more for a car with a bigger boot and 4 useable seats. 1,655kg of the M3 vs 1,470kg for the coupe or 1,450kg for the roadster.
With the additional power of the V8 they should feel similar in pace. The drive is on the other hand completely different.
You cant get away from the fact that the M3 is a 3 series with a more powerful engine. The car is larger and the E92 especially compared to the E46 as it was designed for the US market. The two m3s compared, the E46 is like a go kart.
Its a placebo effect the M3 vs Z4M is a more comfortable, better insulated place to be as its based on at the time the best in class coupe/saloon which are family/rep cars. But on paper performance is almost the same.
On the other hand the Z4M is more like a prestige kit car - a comfortable cabin but raw inside. Loud and can be pain to drive long distances in. I went from a 320si saloon to my M coupe, it had the standard exhaust and used to drone on the motorway and took me a long time to get used to. My first trip was from Cumbria to Newcastle, got out feeling very tired and with a head ache thinking did I do the right thing... simply because the 3 series was so quiet and refined in comparison. Its obvious the Z4M it was a side project compared to the M3 which was far more commercial and the sales numbers also show this.
The Z is designed as a sports car, you sit low to the ground and the car is very communicative in some respects in negative ways. The way the seats sit over the rear axle makes it feel skitish and a bit of an axe murderer whereas your relatively cocooned in the M3 and sit really high up really strange position when your used to the Z.
The main thing with the M3 is that it felt big and heavy although the engine is fantastic it just doesn't have that get up and go like the Z, probably because of the extra weight but then once you get up to 6k the engine ignites and is an absolute hoot but you have to ring it all the time and it has such a gallop and long gears that its just not that much fun, straight roads its balstic. Whereas the S54 has 90% of torque at 2000rpm the V8 is at 4000rpm. The Z feels so much more fun to drive on A and B roads...
The m3 also had woeful MPG get on it like 60-70% and it was in the mid teens most of the time... in 2007/8/9 when the economic crash happened and fuel prices had a sharp rise it really was a drag. £70-80 getting 200 odd miles... even being gentle never saw more than 25-26 on a long motorway cruise. In the Z I averaged 26 throughout my ownership.
Not that fuel really matters but if its a daily you need to factor that in. Doing 8-12k a year at 15-23mpg is going to do some damage.
On the track is a different matter and BMW significantly improved the M3 with newer variants.
The one my father had was an pre facelift bought new traded his E46 for it which I loved.
BMW E46 M3, Alston, Hartside, Cumbria, CSL wheels by
Tom Scott, on Flickr
I remember the reviews at the time... Chris Harris bought one before he was a fairly well known. I remember the videos he made for autocar, being so frustrated with it, the GTR had just come out too and although on paper they were similar in power, it minced the M3 everytime and was within 1/10th everytime 0-60 0-100. The m3 was all over the place. The M3 didnt have any fancy electronics and getting it off the start line was very difficult. Struggled to get the power down.
There was a lot of reviews that concluding that it was pretty average... The face lift improved greatly with the DCT and there were sus changes and it became a lot more electronic. By the end the competition packs were really quite capable but people had moved on and that original stigma stuck with the latter cars. There were also lots of good cars in 2011-2012 and the competition cars with the full spec were really quite eye watering. The later ones really seem to keep their value being the last naturally aspirated M car.
Ordered on launch it was a nearly 60k and took 8 months to get here so ended up with a 57 as they were hard to get hold of. 3 years 25k miles traded it in for a 911 and got £27k for it :| they were like lead balloons and the fact the economy in 2009 was a disaster and nobody wanted them. I remember the salesman he literally didnt want it... making all sorts of excuses m3s were all over forecourts at the time. It was in the release colour and I remember him mentioning that the colour was a bit marmite... I was like its red...
Couple of pics of it with my 320SI at the time
At the same time the later cars lost a bit of the feel of the M3. Although the pre facelift was very mechanical with competition the later cars lost more of the BMW M feel with the added electronics. The pre facelift with the manual was still a raw car just not the same as the Z.
BMW continued with that direction with pressure to make cars that were predictable and competitive with other cars in the same bracket. We have ended up with the new M3/4 which have in my mind pretty much lost the essence of what an M car is. Like being on gran turismo rather than driving yourself... engine noises piped through the cabin, rapid auto boxes etc etc
So really if you look at it like that the M3 was really the last bastion and you can buy well.
On the other hand they still dont come close to the E46 M3 and E85/6 Z4M.
I would be quite happy running an E46 as a daily and a Z4M as a weekender even today.
