1st Drive New BMW M3 - Better than the M4? | G80 BMW M3 Competition | 4K

Hey guys, welcome back to the channel and welcome to my first drive video on the brand new G80 M3 competition. Hopefully you've already checked out my M4 competition first drive that I posted a couple of days ago. I was massively impressed with that car, but this is the one that I'm really, really excited about because I have my own one turning up in a couple of weeks' time. As many of you know, I haven't revealed the spec of my M3, but it's not going to be this, although this drabbit grey with black leather interior looks really good. The base price of the M3 competition is £75,000. It's actually £1,300 cheaper than an equivalent M4 competition, which in my head makes no sense because surely you're getting more car with the M3, but I'm not going to complain because I have one coming and that £1,300 can go towards my fuel bills. This particular press car has about £10,000 worth of options on it, similar to the M4 competition. We have the visibility pack, which consists of the laser lights. It has the carbon package, so carbon exterior details and the all-important, as I've discovered, incredibly comfortable and supportive carbon bucket seats. This also has, I think, the comfort pack. On the road, retail, this is about £85,000. Not cheap, but if it's anything as good as the M4 competition, in my opinion, worth every single penny. This M3 shares much of its underpinnings with the M4 that I had recently. It has the same S58 engine under the bonnet. That's a 3-litre straight-six twin-turbo, produces 510 horsepower and 650 newton-metres of torque. That goes through the brilliant ZF eight-speed gearbox. All power and torque is fed to the ground via the rear axle only. This is a rear-wheel drive model, just like the M4. There will be an X-Drive version of this available, probably in about six months' time. We also have the Touring turning up next summer, probably summer of 2022. No confirmed dates yet, but could you imagine one of these in a Touring? I mean, that to me is pretty much car pornography. Some of you might be wondering why I've gone for the M3 over the M4, and it's not to do with the fact that it's £1,300 less expensive. It's more so to do with the fact that this is a far more practical car, and it looks better. Those rear arches, I mean, they just look stunning, as they did on the F80. And you get two usable seats in the back of this. You can actually put adults in there. They have windows, they have climate control. It's a much nicer place to spend time in the back of an M3 than it is in the back of an M4. But I totally get people that like the two-door M4 because, really, it is a bit more sports car-like with the two doors, a bit like my M2. But this just ticks so many boxes for me, and I can't wait to get in it and do a long road trip to the south of France with my other half and my parents in it. That's the dream, and that's why I've got one. Right, let's jump in and waste no more time. Okay, here we are back at this fairly brilliant piece of road. I've spent the past hour in this car doing the flybys with Patrick. A bit of time on the motorway, just as I did in the M4. The black interior is probably classier, but somehow it doesn't feel as special in here because the seats don't stand out visually as much, if that makes sense. And I think this particular spec of car, the Dravic grey paintwork and the black interior, would probably be my pick or my choice if I wasn't buying my M3 as part of my channel, if that makes sense. It has to look good on social media, and this particular car is really difficult to photograph. Maybe it'll come out good on video, but to get a good picture of this paint and for it to look real, it's really difficult. So I'm glad I didn't go with this spec, but it's a really nice spec, if that makes any sense whatsoever. Something else you notice straight away in the M3 compared to the M4, is these B pillars are a lot further forward. So getting in and out is a little bit harder, but still very easy. But when you're in the seat, you actually feel a bit more cosseted. You feel like there's more metal work around you, which effectively there kind of is. So it does feel a little bit different from the driver's seat, but essentially from here forward, it's exactly the same. Something else I've noticed, and I'm not sure if it's just because this car has maybe done less miles than the M4 that I had out earlier, but the ride in this M3 is a fraction firmer. So my M1 button now is comfort suspension, because in sports along the same bit of road, it definitely feels a bit stiffer, a bit more jarring compared to the M4 competition. Which is interesting, because you would assume that the spring rates and stuff would be identical between the two cars. But maybe it's just me, maybe it's because I'm slightly more used to this car already, but it definitely feels a little bit stiffer, a little bit more unsettled. It's the same traction. I've got the traction control switched on to two, so that's basically backed all the way off. Gives me a tiny hint when I need it, but it's unbelievable. It's still only five degrees out there, and yes I do have a little bit of temperature in these brilliant Michelin Pilot Sport 4S's, but the traction this car finds out of corners is just unreal. The M4 I have is the M Drift Analyzer, I think that's what it's called, where it measures your drifts. Now obviously I've only had this car on the M4 for a couple hours on the public road, so I've not really been able to experiment with that. But I'm sure the likes of Chris Harris, who had a car for a few days, managed to take it out on track and demonstrate exactly what that drift control or measure gauge thing is. I'm excited about trying it on a track and where I can go properly sideways. Is it gimmicky? Probably a little bit, but I'm sure it does a good job of measuring the drift, and I'm here talking about it, so it's definitely worth putting in the car. And all of that technology is in the car already, because that's how it works out, the traction control, that's how it works out at slip angles, it's a very intelligent traction control system now, I mean 10-way, it's amazing. I've found level 2 to be my favourite for on the road, it just lets you get slightly out of shape, but not silly angles. The grip, the grip and the pace of this car, it's really hard to explain actually, it doesn't seem right, it feels like I'm driving an xDrive version of the M3, and I felt that way in the M4 as well. If I didn't know, I would have said, yeah xDrive, but massively rear biased, because what happens is, you go sideways, but it just fires you forward as well. Normally in a rear wheel drive car, when you go sideways, you're losing forward momentum, so you're not accelerating that hard, but in this thing, it seems to do both, but yeah it is rear wheel drive only. My first drive verdict on this new M3 Composition is, just brilliant, it really, really is, both cars, the M3 and the M4 are just mighty. I'm literally not disappointed at all, I'm so glad, because I was worried, obviously they're not cheap, but they are in line with the RS5 and the C63s and other premium cars at this sort of segment, but honestly, the performance that's on offer, the comfort, the luxury, the technology, you know, I've got the brilliant operating system 7 in here, I've got lots of specific M gadgets to play with, and you know, I've got the M mode and the setup down here, plus all of the drift measuring features, it's really, I'm not left wanting any more in this cabin. I'm glad that I've gone for the orange interior, because the black is just not special enough, it's lovely, but it's just not special enough, but otherwise, what a car. I've put the chassis into Sport Plus, just to see what it feels like on a typical British B road, instantly you can feel it's so much stiffer than Comfort or even Sport, it's really firm, I'm sure this will be the choice setting for the majority of circuits out there, but I know with a car feeling this stiff, it's really going to struggle to lay down its traction, in fact, this feels very similar to the F80, when you stiffen that one right up, it had a similar sort of feel, coming through here, I literally can feel every single bump in the road, which really shows you how stiff this chassis is, I mean there's so much strengthening that's going on underneath the shell, and in fact, that accounts for a lot of the weight apparently, is all of the extra strut bracing, especially around the rear axle, when you lift the bonnet open, unfortunately that beautiful carbon bow of a strut race is gone in the new G-Series, and I fear that that's probably a cost related thing, and I love the one in my M2, I think it looks really special, when you lift the engine bay, it looks really, really good, whereas in this one, it looks okay, but it's no different to a regular 3-Series really, with a bit of extra bracing. I guess we need to summarise, well I'm massively impressed with both cars, ironically the M4 feels a little bit better on this particular road, just a bit more fluid, but I'm not sure if I'm imagining that, and like I said earlier on, I'm not sure if this car's maybe done a lot less miles, so it's barely broken in, it's done 1100 miles, so maybe that's what it is, but everything else, I love the way this looks, I love the practicalities that we talked about at the start, and I just love the way it goes, it's got so much shove, it really has, it's just so impressive, it's great to see that BMW are still producing amazing straight sixes, you know engines that they've been renowned for building for so many years, and this is no disappointment, it felt good in the X3M competition that I drove, but that car was a little bit flawed, you probably know I think it's way too stiff for the UK anyway, and because that car weighs a fair chunk more than this, and you know it's a lot higher centre of gravity etc, being an SUV, I didn't really get to exploit this S58 like I do in this car, it just feels brilliant, but I'm not sure what's better, the acceleration, the engine, or the handling, or the way it stops, it's just the entire package is just so good, it's really really complete, I can't wait for mine to turn up now, I really can't, what a brilliant car, it's so good, what a brilliant brilliant car, I think that's how I summarise the M4 competition this morning, but anyway if I did then yeah I'm sorry that I said they're both brilliant, they are both brilliant, and this is one of the great modern M cars as far as I'm concerned, I haven't driven it out on track and I have only spent a couple hours in both cars, but my first impressions are very very good, yes it's not as raw and maybe organic as my M2, but it definitely doesn't feel like it's any more disconnected, which is my biggest fear with these cars, I really thought they would be massively capable, but massively disconnected, which raised this tractor going, wow you would not want to meet that on a country road! Oh fantastic, anyway guys thanks a lot for watching, I really really appreciate it as always and the support has just been immense this year, thanks to Patrick over there, my good friend and expert cameraman, I couldn't have done these videos without him, I'll be seeing you very soon, I've got an M4 competition press car turning up in the next week or so, and I'm going to do a more extensive review on that car, hopefully take it to some even better roads and let you know what it's like to live with. Cheers guys, take it easy and I'll see you at the next one!