It’s going to sound like a classic “bad thing is actually good” take, but hear me out: I think the big, ugly nostrils on the BMW M3 and M4 are good, and I’m tired of pretending they are not not. This has been my opinion since I first saw the mole rat poles. This is now my view.
Everyone is always whining about how cars are focused-grouped and killed, and no one takes any more risks, and there are no brokers carrying out their vision. But as soon as someone even walks near the line, everyone sobs and claws at their pearls. “What did you do to the M3 !?”
I do not have the David E. Davis’ story about the BMW 2002 until I was an adult, and I had no interest in the M1 that came and went before my time. But for much of my life, BMWs were on a separate level of existence – untouchable. Cooler than Porsche and Ferrari because they did not make sports cars, they made hot rod sedans that could make the sports cars run off.
I will never forget to stare at the cooling plate fans stopped behind an E36 M3 bumper in the parking lot of our local mall and then locate an M3 Lightweight in Front Street. I will never forget to put in Alex Roy’s M5 and to hear him say it was the last amazing BMW we’ve ever seen. I will never forget reading Jonny Lieberman’s M Coupe Entry in the Jalopnik Fantasy Garage. A Laguna Seca Blue E46 in the parking lot of the restaurant where I worked in college. All these modest cars, customized and messed up to deliver great speed for those who know well how to buy one. The underdog, the q-ship, the wolf in the sum of the sheep’s parts.
In 2021, BMW is not a tough underdog. Depending on the year, BMW is the leading, or second leading seller of luxury cars in the world. It builds big, expensive tech cars and crossovers and it sells the shit out of it, presumably at a good margin. At one point, BMW had to stop making types of cars that form the contours of its mythology. And stop doing it.
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It just did not know what to do after that.
The consensus among BMW fans, enthusiasts and the media seems to be that BMW has been trying to figure out what to do for the past decade or so. There was the i8 / i3 detour, a hatch with a cool front on the C-pillar? I have no idea if these cars are still being manufactured. There were some powerful but forgettable M-cars. (People who would know say that the new M2 CS is great.)
I will admit that I – a person who has never owned a used BMW so much – was once very angry with BMW for ‘losing its way’. Some of the meanest reviews I have ever written were reviews of BMWs from the heart. I’m sure at some point I would have said that BMW just needed to recapture the magic of the E39 or E46, or whatever. As German executives said last time I saw one in real life: ‘It’s not possible.’ If you count the money, I would think that it is not even desirable.
BMW may not be completely loose, but the M3 should still be a sports sedan. It seems like you’re breaking down in a new direction or being endlessly dragged into conversations about how the cars you build today are not as good or as captivating or as beautiful as the cars you can not. want to make more.
To me, when I look at this car, it’s clear that BMW wants to take a breather. There is more evidence in an extremely devastating attempt at social media, and even more so video where the cars are common to each other. Someone at BMW made a choice.
The much-maligned concept 4 of 2019 was the first time in a long time that I had the feeling that BMW was heading in a direction. It was a break. The design felt familiar, but only tangentially related to BMWs of the past, more referential than reverent. It was also one of maybe three show cars I’ve seen in the last ten years that I do not remember at all.
The regular 3-series and 4-series come very close to the promise of the concept 4. The M-cars get there. They are perverted, avant-garde, shocking and ugly. At least visually, it is a firm rejection of much of the BMW ethos of the golden age. People who worked on the E39 might have recognized them, but they could not have devised it themselves.
Many cars currently vaguely look like BMW. The M3 and M4 look like BMWs from another, narrower dimension where people do drugs that come in a bottle and glow blue. It’s good, it’s exciting, it makes other sedans look instant. BMW caught a shit for designs where others were not ready to follow, and that they were justified. I think they will be here too. Do you remember how crazy people were about the Bangle cars? They may have looked like another breather at the time, but they are now just part of the BMW myth.
I’m just vaguely aware of the cars BMW is currently selling. I even lost the M cars, I think the E92s. I have not driven the new M3 / M4 yet, and the last one did not love me. So I’m not really equipped to say if that’s good. But in terms of styling, it’s a watershed for BMW. It is something else, an expression of a new ethos. You may not know it now, you may hate it, but that’s what you asked for.