BMW 3 Series (G50)

TurboLlew

Honorary ///Member
This is so funny. The design team at M Performance forgot to do their homework and Googled “Trendy car accessories” moments before the presentation.

PS: do not Google “trendy car accessories”. 😂😂😂

Ironically they look like they asked AI what was trendy and then made temu versions of the parts on eg the Alfa GTAm 🤣
 

TurboLlew

Honorary ///Member

I would also point out that the quality of the carbon on my F90 I have NOT been happy with vs. what they used to provide on my F10. The F10 carbon was very meticulously laid and was absolute perfection. Fitment was amazing. While fitment is still good on the F90, the weave and inconsistencies are not even close. They would never have passed QC 10 years ago, and I know because I bought those parts 10 years ago and paid with pleasure over reps because the difference was so obvious.

I helped the current owner of my F10 deep clean the M Performance Akrapovic exhaust the other day. The tips on that system (even the clamps and welds on the system itself that also weighs basically nothing) are basically art. You could mistake the tips on my F90 as good quality reps from Aliexpress due to the line visible in the weave where it is joined that, in their wisdom, BMW made visible on the sides instead of underneath the tip. Same goes for the kidneys where there are 'once you see it, you can't unsee it' defects. The fitment on (again original as supplied from BMW) front splitters is not amazing. In times past, it would almost look like part of the bumper with the tolerances. These are original M Performance items.

The Exhausts have also dropped in quality - my Titanium exhaust is (again) GOOD but not the unobtanium that the F10's Akrapovic system was. It is VERY CLEARLY a step (or half step) down for 3x the price at going rates. I expect this will be astronomically priced too because you require some of the M Performance bits to make the car look distinctive or even just cohesive these days.
 

TBP88

Well-known member
Realistically nobody is going to buy a 318. It is there to make you buy the 320 for just that little bit more.

My trusty inflation calculator and car magazine from 2013 shows that inflation-adjusted, an F30 320i would cost the equivalent of R725K today. We are sitting at +38% over what we 'should' be paying for one if it was purely inflationary effects at play. At the same time the N20 equipped 320i had a fair bit more power than 115kw. It really has been bad on that front. Generally cars in other markets are not that different in price from the outgoing generation (few % which can be written off in the extra tech/performance they bring in). These %s are great on paper but a few % on 500K and on R1.5M are very different things in practice.

A 335i would cost the equivalent of R1.1M for reference. You could argue at the higher end it is not as bad since the gaps are still comparable - just that the lower tier models seem MUCH more unpalatable because of it.



X3 M Competitions are no brainers for the money they are going for at the moment.

We actually have a lot of slept-on cars while everyone is worried about either new cars or what was the 'last best' and looking for rubbery manuals:

Z4 2.0i with the B48 (its actually fun to drive)
Z4 M40i with the B58
X3 M40i
AMG GT/GT C/GT R
C63 C205 Coupe (many are shitboxes though)
SLS Roadster (the gullwing is double or triple this)
2018-20 Cayenne Turbo E3
Giulia QV (provided you service at a specialist)
F-Type R

When people come with "what can you buy" stories and point to a Golf you have to wonder :ROFLMAO:. I suppose the real question is "what can you rent" since to buy some of these, you won't be able to use the lease gymnastics
Agreed, there *ARE* still some pockets of value, but they're diminishing rapidly (and again, an SLS roadster is a "deal" but it's still R2m+ and of course you'll be doing maintaining all on your own - brakes alone are 20k+ for a pair of fronts, for eg).

I'd add onto this list a Z4M, TTRS (all the gens really, 2010 models are like sub 500k for wild performance), some of the left field performance cars of the 00s/10s like a noble, M400s are routinely yours sub R1m and I can't imagine there's much you can get more aggressive and stand-out than that for the price of a pretty rough 997 now), z3 3.0si still yours around R200k, a lot of car for that from a cool/fun perspective as well, Alfa GT 3.2V6 and 916GTV V6 also around the 100-200k range are pretty cool, though not great to drive a decent 987 cayman S is still around R500k - pretty great car for that sort of money too.
 

msm

Well-known member
Given that the current 2 and 4 series are closely (but adapted) versions of the G20 3 series, it's going to be interesting what they do to those 2 models as well, on this new platform. I suspect that they may kill off the 2 series though, in it's current RWD/AWD form (given what happened to the 1 series using the Mini FWD/AWD architecture instead) - hope I'm wrong as I quite like where the 2 series currently sits in the range, as the spiritual successor to the older 3 series coupe.
 

FiRi@Rennzport

Well-known member
Official Advertiser
Some Rennzport flavour
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Sent from my SM-S948B using Tapatalk
 

TurboLlew

Honorary ///Member
Some Rennzport flavour
62a4e80cc0c7824e6cd43173a9c5fe80.jpg
a292454944e0a11ae86f52721452887c.jpg
049e6ededa6fd17d2bed4c51a4b4a266.jpg
242cc2cb5c00e7ce17d6a8a0afd0fe98.jpg


Sent from my SM-S948B using Tapatalk

Makes me want to buy one on day 1

M3/4 should be absolute bangers if the base car is anything to go by. Let’s see. Again I think the proportions are a lot better for ICE than the previous EV pics. Being able to turn off the halos makes it so much better on the front too
 
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