BMW M3 Competition Package 2011 Review

Price guide (recommended price before statutory and delivery charges): $158,300
Options fitted to test car (not included in above price): Competition Package $9900 (19-inch light alloys; M Drive; EDC with Sport mode upgrade; extended DSC for drive dynamics optimisation); seven-speed DTC $7300; extended connectivity to mobile phone $220
Crash rating: TBC
Fuel: 98 RON PULP
Claimed fuel economy (L/100km): 11.9L
CO2 emissions (g/km): 285
Also consider: Audi RS5; Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG; Lexus IS-F; Porsche 911;

Beyond the 19-inch light alloy wheel upgrade and the clear lacquer exposing the carbon fibre of the roof it's all super serious, invisible stuff – the kind whose benefits only reveal themselves in full behind the closed doors of the track or beyond the gaze of the law.

BMW has extended the switchable electronic damping control (EDC) settings toward the track-ready end of the hardness scale. Stability control (DSC) has also been recalibrated to make the most of each EDC setting.

Then, of course, with the optional double-clutch transmission (a further $7300) comes a drive-logic system that allows you to switch incrementally through half a dozen different transmission behaviours.

Gluing it all together is the M Drive system found on the M5 and M6. It uses an all-encompassing memory to let you preset all facets of the car – ECU, suspension, transmission, seating, the lot – to a specific configuration set through iDrive.

You can scroll through and take your pick from several different settings for each, effectively rolling these sub-settings up into one big overall 'super-setting'. The net result: switch from a comfy freeway tourer to a snarling hairpin muncher at the push of the wheel-mounted M button. It's devilishly clever, but its practicality away from the Ring or the Mountain is another matter.

The rest of the M3 is exceptional for its all-round practicality, something it has excelled at throughout most of its 25 year history. Its three-box silhouette means it fits two grown-ups in the rear, and lots of luggage behind them.

If you want a Porsche that does that you have to buy one of those banes of the Porsche purist's life, a Panamera or Cayenne. For M3 purists, the cake has always been there for the having and the eating.

There was a bit of a blip with the 1990s E36, which introduced the first sequential clutchless manual transmission. Complex and neurotic, it served up 11 different herbs and spices in three different firmware maps for every race track in the world, and none (that you could find, anyway) for Parramatta Road in peak hour.

For some aficionados, the shift from the E46 M3's largish (3.2-litre) straight six to the E90's little (4.0-litre) V8 in 2007 stole some of the magic. But this is not your usual rumbly, lazy V8. It's an eight pot screamer – not reaching its peak of 309kW until 8300rpm, or its 400Nm until 3900.

And it's made better by the Getrag-sourced DCT. Seven grand is a lot of money for an auto option, but unlike some sequential gearboxes this one is a joy to use.

Left to its own devices, it shifts up and down with an intuitive seamlessness although in Power mode, it's too jumpy for comfort on urban roads.

Paddle it in Power mode around a messy ribbon of back road though, and it feels like any gonk could put in a good time on track day and have a great time doing it in relative safety.

The M3 now also panders to the green lobby, and hasn't missed out on the EfficientDynamics technologies the company has been installing across its lineup.

While, unsurprisingly, it misses out on the shift-up indicator, it does get auto stop-start and the other now well documented engine mods designed to minimise energy dissipation and channel every last drop of output down the drivetrain.

While we failed to verify BMW's claimed, combined fuel consumption figure of 11.9L/100km, we did achieve a still respectable 14.5L/100km while splitting our road time pretty evenly between the 'burbs and the freeway.

Often touted as the 'world's best car', the latest M3 is exceptional for the way it packages soccer-mum practicality with the broadest driving-dynamics ambit you can buy. The Competition Package might be of limited value to most buyers, but it's important in further stretching this truly remarkable machine's performance envelope.

Read the latest Carsales Network news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at carsales' mobile site...