BMW M3 GTS 2010 Review

BMW M3 GTS
Ascari race resort, Spain

What we liked
>> It's properly fast
>> It's properly loud
>> It's properly glued down

Not so much
>> It's fearfully expensive
>> It's fearfully orange
>> It's road registered, but it'll be fearful to drive it there

The BMW M3 started life as a hard-core, stripped-out road racing special and has gotten softer with each generation. People might not like it, but that's the simple truth.

The original E30 M3 was built so BMW could go touring car racing. Since then they've been more luxurious, higher-powered versions of whatever 3 Series bodyshells were going around at the time. Sure, they've all had more power than their predecessors, they've all become internal technical flagships.

Now 25 years after the M3's birth, BMW has found a way to turn back time, with a light-weight, track-focused M3 special. Dubbed the M3 GTS, the limited-edition hammer has more power, less weight, more grip, monster brakes and an even-more monstrous price tag.

And it only comes in orange. And there are only 136 of them. And they're only available in Europe as left-hookers. And they're all sold already!

While the E46 M3 CSL went some of the way down the GTS path, a huge chunk of it performance advantage over the stock M3 was in its super-sticky Michelin tyres. The margin between this car and the current E90/92 M3 is something different again.

The stock M3 has 309kW and 400Nm of torque. This one has 331kW and another 40Nm... Plus it's 50kg lighter, in spite of carrying the steel scaffolding of its bolt-in half roll cage.

So that's straight-line sprinting taken care of, then. The GTS hauls to 100km/h in 4.4 seconds, two tenths faster than the claim for the M3 coupe, then continues sprinting all the way up to 307km/h. Not bad for a humble, mass-production based ‘family' car.

But, then, not much of the GTS bears more than a passing resemblance to the more polite standard BMW coupes, and it's not just the bright orange roll cage that gives that idea, either.

It sits even lower than the standard M3, which sits lower again to the standard 3 Series coupe. There's not much to it inside, because most of what you don't need for speed has gone, replaced by hugely supportive Recaro racing seats and a six-point racing harness which is absolutely no good for paying road tolls or ordering fast food… That's why the GTS also comes with an old-school, inertia-reel seat belt for the road.

There's no satellite navigation here. There's no sound system, either -- aside from your right foot -- and aircon has been dispensed with alongside much of the M3's heavy sound deadening.

Underneath the skin, there is a much-stiffened suspension that is fully adjustable and more accurate. If you're clever, you can tweak the car to suit whatever racetrack you're pointing it on. For Ascari, it's 16mm lower in the front and 12mm lower in the back than the stock M3.

On our test day GTS chief project engineer, Rolf Scheibner, insisted they also found a “fast corner” setup for the shock absorbers to take some of the fear out of Ascari's high-speed bends. Combine that with more negative camber, a tweak of the adjustable rear wing and front splitter and the GTS turned into a full Ascari-tuned package -- but BMW insists you can do the same for every track in the world.

But you need to understand a bit about chassis setup first… And to do that, though, you have to understand the car. Driving the current M3 (and a few of its predecessors) at its limits involves the constant juggling of steering and throttle, of turn-in understeer and giggly, throttle-driven oversteer. And that, BMW decided, wasn't desirable in its track special. It has been racing and (at the Nurburgring 24 hour race this year) winning with a GT2 version of the M3 and it transferred a lot of that track data into the GTS.

The biggest shock, then, isn't the full-body cuddle you get from the Recaros, nor the shoulder squashing belts, but the noise. Fire up the V8 and you realize that with the extra horses comes extra snorting. The GTS is L-O-U-D! Hell, it's not just loud, it's ferocious -- all bark and wooffle and metallic ripping and induction noise. And that's just at idle.

Blip the throttle and it gets more intense, and your hands grip the small, fat, suede steering wheel a little tighter in anticipation. But, as you pull the right paddle of the dual-clutch gearbox and trickle away in the first of its seven gears, you get an instant realization about the GTS. It's not really an M3…

As a terrific road car, the M3 has its issues on racetracks, not the least of which is its relatively high rear roll centre and its struggles with power down out of corners. Weight transfer on fast changes of direction at maximum attack could be problematic too.

The GTS promises, even in the pitlane, not to do any of this. It's just so taut; so deeply tied down. You strike the bumps and you feel them through the wheel and the seat, but the body never moves, just the wheels.

And, when you finally thump the throttle coming over the crest into Ascari's bizarrely early-apex on Turn One, you know they have put some old-school, grizzled racing veterans to work on the underpinnings. There's no kick, there's no torque twist. The GTS just thumps you in the back and the ears, the 4.4-litre V8 bellowing in a spine-tingling roar that threatens to wake the dead and evacuates the bird life.

Fortunately, it's a short snap into Turn One, then a careful squeeze onto the throttle in third gear for the long, fast sweep onto the short straight. And it's here that your suspicions about its improvement are realised. There's no change in steering angle or throttle opening that upsets it. It's a much more precise tool than the stocker and the rear end, in particular, feels like it's glued down.

A quick, third-gear left-right sweep makes this impression crystal clear. Where the standard car's rear end flopped over and threatened oversteer, the GTS just tracks. Indeed, with its tyres hot on the second lap, it simply goes where you want it, with a combination of aerodynamic and mechanical grip constantly assuring you that it's not going to bite.

The brakes, too, are deeply impressive, though there's none of the la-de-dah carbon-fibre stuff for it, even though the GTS is roughly twice the price of a standard M3 in Europe. The pedal is high and firm and, with a double-clutch gearbox organizing the shifting, there's no missing the big, hard brake pedal. It's solid from the instant you touch it and it only becomes more progressive and more reassuring the harder you push it.

Unlike the lightly-braked standard M3s, the GTS has six-piston calipers up front and four-piston versions at the back and they all clamp down on old-school cast-iron brake discs, though they are drilled and ventilated to keep them cool.

Storm down one of Ascari's many straights and you find that the rolling speed of the GTS is more impressive than its claims, with the twin-clutch M-DCT automated manual gearbox snapping through the gears with brutal speed -- especially with the MDM (M Drive Mode) speeding up the inputs from the steering, throttle and gearbox.

There is enormous flexibility in the engine, too, with genuine performance on offer from before the torque peak arrives at 3750 (150 revs earlier than the standard car) and until just after the power peak at 8300rpm. And there's no speed limiter anymore, which is why it can sprint to 307.

The 19-inch Pirelli PZero Corsas fit like slivers around the new wheels and the grip they offer is so stupendous -- even when they're deeply worn – that the GTS flits around Ascari like it's already worn a groove in the joint.

There are two corners here that are disturbingly quick (including a sixth-gear right hander the GTS takes at 260km/h on a good lap) but there are none of the standard car's wobbles here. It just intuitively goes where you ask it to, with a lot of feedback and not a lot of fuss or fear.

That's not to say it's a doddle. It isn't. The GTS demands attention because it can eventually step out at the back. When it does, it's easy to hold it there -- sliding luridly in power oversteer. It's also easy to just correct it and keep going quickly up the straight. Choose your own adventure...

The GTS a much-more sophisticated machine than the standard M3 -- but only at the track… The ride is so firm, the cornering so flat and the power so brutal that, on a public road, it would be a real handful.

But, at certain times and at certain corners on this track, you can really see why M GmbH believes this car is worth two M3s. It's that good...