[dna550]

Just had to share!

[BForbes]

What a nice review. No stats but on pure driving experience the M was excellent!

[dna550]

Across Spain in a 2008 BMW M3, VW Golf GTI, Audi RS4, Porsche 911 GT3 and Audi R8

By Chris Chilton

Before we begin, you should know a few things.

One: This is not a comparison test.

Two: Because this is not a comparison test, we did not run the 2008 BMW M3, Audi R8, Audi RS4, Porsche 911 GT3 and VW Golf GTI through our battery of track tests (slalom, 0-60 mph acceleration, etc.). Although we have tested the Audi RS4, Audi R8, Porsche 911 GT3 and Volkswagen Golf GTI in previous contests, this time we just climbed in and drove the bunch flat out through the Spanish mountains. All impressions are straight from our seat pants and not from our elaborate electronic testing gear.

Three: We're well aware that these five cars are not direct rivals. The only sort of guy who buys a $25,000 hot hatch when he can afford a supercar either lost his wife to a cad in a Countach or is one of those weirdos they find dead at 87 with three tins of value beans in the cupboard and $2 million in the bank.

But there's actually a very obvious link between the Audi R8, Audi RS4, Porsche 911 GT3 and Volkswagen Golf GTI, a very good reason for bringing them to face the new 2008 BMW M3, and it's simply that these are some of our very favorite cars, from hot hatch to supercar. They each do a different job but, crucially, they all do a job that BMW's M3 reckons it can do, too.

That's always been the thing about the M3, or certainly the recently departed E46 version: It's so many cars to so many people, and all at the same time. It's the car hot-hatch drivers aspire to own: discreet and practical like their rides, but with enough guts to worry supercars on real roads — something not lost on those who could stretch to an exotic but wonder if they really need anything more than an M3 after all. Historically it's been the best performance car money can buy.

So we thought we'd welcome the new car by throwing it in at the deep end. In concrete shoes. I mean, look at what it's up against.

The Wild Bunch
Audi's sensational midengine R8, a cut-price Lambo with a 414-horsepower V8 but so much refinement you wouldn't think twice about using it every day.

Then there's the best 911 we've driven for years: the GT3, a car that clearly spent some time at finishing school in the transition from 996 to 997 generations because it's now barely less civilized than a regular Carrera.

And we couldn't leave out the Audi RS4, the M3's key rival and quite possibly the reason BMW pushed on to V8 power. Yes, we know the sedan version would have been the better choice for comparison, but Audi could only provide a cabrio on the day. Well, it suited the sunny weather.

Mechanically, these cars could be brothers: Both have V8s up front packing around four liters (4.2 in the RS4, 4.0 in the M3), both producing exactly 420 hp with which to inflict grievous harm on their driveshafts. In the Audi's case, that pain is spread across all four wheels, while the M3 tortures the rears alone but has that clever M-differential to lend a hand.

For now both are old-style manuals only. BMW is working on a dual-clutch semiauto to replace the old M3's optional SMG box and Porsche will have one soon, too, but the RS4 will go to its grave with clutch pedal firmly in place: The longitudinal layout means the TT's S-Tronic (DSG in old-speak) won't fit and a proper auto couldn't cope with the 8,000 rpm-plus capability of the V8.

Of the two, the Audi has the more positive shift, the BMW retaining that long-throw, old-fashioned BMW feel. But it's clearly no impediment to performance: BMW says the M3 will hit 62 mph in 4.8 seconds, exactly what Audi claims of the RS4 sedan. Little surprise when just 11 pounds separates them (Audi 3,638 pounds, BMW 3,649); Audi says the 430-pound-lardier cabrio needs just a 10th longer.

Let the Fun Begin
Although they're close against the clock, that extra weight and the awful effects on rigidity of carving off the top ruin the RS4's chances of scalping the M3.

On roughly surfaced Spanish mountain roads, the RS4 wobbles like a newborn calf, but puts its power down cleanly while the M3's traction light blinks stroboscopically, even if the wheels never actually lose purchase sufficiently to ruin forward progress without provocation. Sideways is on the menu — this is an M3 — but it's nearer the back now and you'll find yourself having to munch a starter of stabilizing understeer first.

Yet there are lessons even the RS4 cabrio can teach the M3, such as how to make an interior feel special enough to match the expectations of your most prized badge. (It's all in the dressing because, beneath the incredible seats and flat-bottomed wheel, the A4 cabin looks pretty dated.)

And, more surprisingly, lessons BMW has been handing out to Audi for years — how to make a car ride well and how to make it steer. The RS4 is both more comfortable and steers more positively than the M3, particularly just off the straight-ahead where the Audi rack's weighting generates confidence that the overlight BMW's cannot.

Call 911
But if it's a lesson in steering you want, the GT3's your car. For immediacy of response, weight and genuine feel, nothing here gets close. Matched to near-impeccable body control, it means you can swing from lock to lock on the Ronda road above Marbella without breaking a sweat. It's almost disconcerting at first, so hardwired are your hands into what's happening up front.

The brakes (in this case optional PCCB ceramics) are sharp and decisive to match, and only the slightly heavy, notchy gearshift — it requires a little too much concentration in the heat of action — gets it wrong.

Once it was simple. The GT3 was your track-day nut's car, edgy and uncompromised, and the Turbo was your road-going hero. But now Porsche has tamed the $106,000 GT3's manners without diluting any of the drama, it's become an everyday proposition, a far more appealing car than the pricier Turbo and a serious alternative to an M3.

With the PASM switchable dampers set to "4normal," the GT3 is astonishingly civilized. OK, so this one's got the ClubSport package that brings a half-cage instead of rear seats and some seriously grippy buckets up front, but you can have an ordinary interior instead and still enjoy the same 410-hp naturally aspirated 3.6-liter flat-6 whose roots can be traced to Porsche's late-1990s Le Mans racers.

Porsche says it takes half a second out of the M3 to 60 mph and gets even sillier thereafter, right up to 192 mph. The noise is hard, mechanical and utterly addictive, but the 298 pound-feet torque peak doesn't turn up until 5,500 rpm has registered on the big central dial staring back at you through the Alcantara-trimmed wheel, so you can forget any thoughts of serious overtaking maneuvers in the top two gears.

Yet 3rd and 4th are epic cogs on quick A and B roads, taking you up to 140 mph and safely past errant M3s and RS4s. If it's pure involvement you're after, an ability to immerse you so deep in the experience you never want to surface for air, the GT3 is unstoppable. And good as the M3 is, it just can't compete. We'll have to wait for the M3 CSL for a true GT3 rival.

Ready for the R8
Then what chance does the Audi R8 have, given that we earlier judged it very marginally less exciting than the Porsche 911 Turbo? In fact, there's very little wrong with the $118,000 R8, bar the amount of noise generated when you uncork the RS4-derived 420-hp V8. There's just not enough of it.

But on the same lump-strewn roads that set the RS4 wobbling and the M3's rear tires hopping, the R8 is a revelation. And the reason it works so well is not because it's racecar stiff but exactly the opposite. Its incredible compliance means it can carry ludicrous speeds over terrain that has you hanging on in the GT3 for fear of a car/hedge interface.

With a mammoth 628 fewer pounds to haul than the RS4 cabrio, performance takes a big leap, and not just the small step the 0.3-second advantage Audi says it has to 62 mph suggests. Also, unlike the RS4 with its minimal rear-drive bias, the R8 can be provoked into a satisfying drift through tighter corners. This is a genuine driver's car, so don't let any supercar snob tell you otherwise.

What a shame the steering is a little slow, and very slightly numb. Obviously Audi set out to build a supercar more refined and usable than any that had gone before, but a few minutes in a Porsche Cayman is all it takes to convince that midengine cars can steer well without being nervous.

There are clear parallels between the M3 and R8. Both have been designed to be great all-rounders; both are immensely capable but possess an air of refinement that disguises just how talented they are, and both are about to be eclipsed by more hard-core versions of themselves to placate those not excited enough by what they see here. But the M3 CSL and V10-powered R8 will cost more and take each car into the jaws of some seriously talented competition.

Finally a Round of Golf
So what of the Golf? We left it until the last minute to write about it, just as we all did to drive it.

Well, wouldn't you? We'd just spent two days with the keys to an R8, an RS4, a GT3 and the spanking-new M3 in our pockets. Greedy maybe, but hey, we're only human.

Except the GTI is brilliant. This is the Edition 30, built to mark three decades of the Golf GTI and sold only in Europe. It gets more color coding, stunning dark-finish 18-inch wheels (optional in the U.K.), half leather for the retro-check seats and some very unwelcome red flashes in the interior, including the steering wheel stitching and carpet edges.

Oh, and it costs more, $3,400 more. Which sounds like a rip-off until you learn it's packing 227 hp, up from the 197 hp of the standard car. Torque climbs, too, by 14 lb-ft to 221 lb-ft and, as a result, performance gets a boost, the sprint to 60 mph dropping by 0.4 second and below the psychologically crucial-in-this-class 7.0-second mark, to 6.8 seconds. VW also says top speed is up from 146 mph to more than 150 mph, a hair's breadth from the 155 mph of the electronically limited M3.

Quick, yes, but it feels even faster than the numbers can convey, answering one of the few criticisms of the ordinary car: that its chassis deserved a bigger challenge than the stock 2.0-liter blown FSI could deliver. In fact, in a three-car convoy back to the hotel at the end of the day at high speed, with the Golf the meat in an M3/GT3 sandwich.

It feels light, urgent and significantly livelier than the standard car. Its plain-Jane four-pot motor can't hold a candle to the others when it comes to sonic enjoyment, but in key areas such as the instinctive rightness of the driving position and the way the wheel sits in your hands, it crucifies the M3.

And here, the optional DSG box is a joy, leagues ahead of the R8's old-style semiautomatic for sophistication. Next year, Volkswagen will make this 227-hp engine standard in the GTI and the case for not buying one even weaker.

You Get What You Pay For
We love a giant killer because it makes great headlines and there's always pressure to deliver an upset. But there's no upset here. The Golf is dynamite, but would we buy it over an M3 if I had the money for either? Of course we wouldn't.

The Golf is not merely half as good as the M3 (which the price would suggest), but the noise, character and extra performance of that V8, the drama of the M3's silhouette in the windows of shops as you pass by, and the greater scope for naughtiness that rear-wheel drive affords on those days when you just fancy treating yourself, all mean we'd lay down the extra coin.

We'd pick it ahead of the RS4 cabrio, too. The Audi's too compromised dynamically by the loss of a roof and at $82,675, it costs $20K more than the M3 (which will be available as a convertible soon enough), which is getting close to what BMW will want for the forthcoming, stripped-for-action M3 CSL. But there is no CSL RS4; it already feels hard-core enough not to need one, and we have a suspicion that in sedan form it might be more than the M3 can cope with, at least for those who'd rather not hide their automotive light under a bushel.

So we'd take the M3 over the Audi and the Golf but stretch again for the GT3 if we didn't need the M3's practicality. It's one of the best cars any sum of money can buy and, though it can't compete with the R8 for visual appeal, it has the Audi licked for entertainment.

And so the Porsche is the car we would most want to drive through the Spanish hills a second time. Add a family and luggage, trips to the tip and holiday clutter, and the multifaceted M3 is still the car for the job.

The manufacturers provided Edmunds these vehicles for the purposes of evaluation.