"Did I say there was no price to pay for the refinement and performance?

There is a price, of course. It will cost you $35,800 (suggested retail) to get one out of the dealer’s showroom.A fair piece of change, but (I’m sorry to say) it doesn’t sound all that high any more, given the escalation in price of nearly any car that can compete with the M3 in performance or quality. Or, indeed, compared with the astronomical prices of BMW’s own upper-level 8-Series cars and their ilk.

As its competition, BMW sees such cars as the Toyota Supra, Ford’s SVT cars, the Nissan 300ZX and the Maz­da RX-7. Curiously, the M3 may beset to create its own broad swath of demographic appeal, cutting across the sports-car, sports-coupe and sedan markets with a well-rounded perform­ance car that steals equal amounts of thunder from nearly all these more closely defined niches. The M3 is a formidable piece of work that will give a lot of buyers something new and pleasantly troubling to contemplate."