What's all this about?
The G20 seventh-gen BMW 3 Series has only just been revealed, but the canny German company has already announced that it has a range of M Performance parts for your Three that will make it look sharper, and possibly even stop and handle better.
Really?
Well... sort of. You see, four-piston M Performance brake callipers grabbing mighty 18-inch (460mm) perforated, grooved and lightweight brake discs are on offer, with the tell-tale sign being that said callipers are painted red. There are also four designs of 18- and 20-inch light-alloy M Performance alloys to choose from, which'll come on some pretty serious, sporty tyres. And, among the visual body addenda, a front splitter, boot-lip spoiler and rear diffuser are all available, finished in high-gloss or carbon-fibre and said to be genuinely capable of reducing aerodynamic lift at either end of the 3 Series. That's pretty tasty, right?
It is, but is much of the rest of the 3 Series M Performance stuff mainly aesthetic?
Yes indeed, although BMW insists that all its M Performance stuff is 'inspired by and derived from' its motorsport activities. Presumably why it feels confident enough to say that a set of branded tyre bags for storing your precious M Performance alloys while you're on your winter set of steel wheels/cold-weather tyres (you do run winter wheels on your Beemer outside of spring/summer, right...?) 'radiate an extra motor racing atmosphere into the home garage'.
Oh my. Moving swiftly on, what else is there?
Outside, there are carbon-fibre M Performance door mirror caps, branded side-sill graphics and grey-tinted clusters for the rear lights. Oh, and some tasty titanium/carbon-fibre M Performance tips for the Three's twin exhausts. Projector puddle lamps in the door mirrors can beam the BMW M logo or any other M Performance motif onto the floor near the car when it's opened, while inside you can choose from an M Performance steering wheel with a 12-o'clock marker plus Alcantara grips and contrast silver stitching, carbon-fibre shift paddles for models fitted with the Steptronic autobox, carbon-fibre M Performance-branded trim and M Performance floor mats. Track-day enthusiasts will like the OBD-port-operated smartphone app known as the M Performance Drive Analyser, which can perform datalogging and even video-recording duties when you're hammering your 318d M Sport around Castle Combe, flat knacker. Oh yes.
Matt Robinson - 2 Oct 2018