The engineers at BMW’s M Division could hardly have known their M3 – initially a by-product of the company’s racing ambitions – would anchor a decades-long dynasty on road and track. The very first M3, known as the E30, was produced as a homologation special: a road-going version built specifically to allow BMW to enter a full-fat race car bearing its resemblance in the DTM series. Not a bad move, considering it went on to become the championship’s most successful race car of all time.
It was a Frenchman who coined the phrase “the more things change, the more they stay the same”, but a quick look at the M3’s lineage suggests the Germans were listening in. The neat, friendly styling of the earlier E30, E36 and E46 generations hinted at their youthful, playful driving dynamics, before the approach was turned on its head in 2007 with the arrival of the monstrous, V8-powered E92. The squared-off bodywork of the first M3s gave way to the angry, flared shapes of the E92, F80 and G80, with an equivalent shift in driving manners.
While enthusiasts can argue in circles about this evolution, the M3’s DNA has never wavered: more performance than it has any right to, with almost no compromise on day-to-day liveability. Forty years on, the car has outlasted trends, rivals and entire segments of the market. What it has built along the way, perhaps more than any performance car of its era, is a community.
With three generations of M3 (an E36, E46 CSL and G81 Touring) offered to me by the team at BMW Australia, I found myself in the thick of the travelling circus that is the Targa Classica. A four-day rally paying homage to Italy’s storied Targa Florio and Mille Miglia, stretched across 1,200 kilometres of meticulously planned Victorian roads. Ninety drivers and their navigators got behind the wheel of cars ranging from moving barn-finds to the sharpest two-door machinery fresh out of Modena. But for BMW, and for the M3’s 40th, the Targa was in many ways more reunion than rally.
The E36 in our convoy made that point quietly but clearly. The car belongs to a BMW owner who wasn’t competing. He didn’t need to be. The opportunity to have his car represent the M3 nameplate across four days on open roads, to be part of something that celebrated a car he loves – was reason enough. That willingness to lend your pride and joy to a cause simply because you believe in it, is the M community in essence.
Their mission was to win a series of stages where compliance with prescribed point-to-point times and average speeds were rewarded – my hopes of seeing cars banging off the limiter mid-air were quickly dashed after learning all stages were completed under road rules. It didn’t take long for me and fellow team BMW drivers Jeremy Sedley and Pat James to realise we’d arrived hopelessly ill-prepared, handed a 150-page road book full of arcane abbreviations and directions that required at least some prior study. Best to drop the competitive aspirations and enjoy the ride.
Drivers and their navigators were of just about every possible permutation and combination: fathers and sons, fathers and daughters, husbands and wives, coworkers, brothers, mates who met at the pub twenty years ago, and a very welcome helping of celebrity car-tragics in the form of DJ Carl Cox.
The journey was sublime. Always scenic, always in total disagreement with Google Maps’ preferred route. A spaghetti of old-growth forest roads gave way to sprawling hillsides dotted with Victorian towns and schools where pupils stood at the gate and lost their minds at the internally combusted parade jolting their town into life once a year. “Rev it!” they’d yell. We’d dutifully oblige and give it absolutely heaps.
That sense of community crested on the second evening, when a packed house drop put their cutlery down to tune in to a full run-down of the history of the M3 led by BMW’s Product & Pricing Manager, Prabs Datar, who then opened up the floor for a round of questions around the past, present and future of the car. It was a presentation followed by a healthy panel talk of M3 owners with no shortage of un-prompted crowd participation, proof the passion and community around the M3 remains thriving.
On the road, those conversations happened organically between stages too. The Targa’s extended format does what track days and car shows can’t: it gives people time. Time to get past the specs and into the stories. The cars that got away, the ones that didn’t, and the particular madness that leads a person to spend four days navigating a road book across Victoria for the love of it.
The G81 M3 Touring proved an entirely different kind of argument. I heaved a decent week’s worth of luggage into the cavernous boot, cranked the seat-heaters and enjoyed the ride as Jeremy – admin of the world’s most followed BMW M fan community – hassled track-focused supercars down scenic back-roads without breaking a sweat. The M3 Touring really does it all, concrete proof of exactly how far we’ve come with this whole “car” thing. Jeremy put it well:
“There’s no substitute for in-person events where people can see the real-world capabilities of this car, particularly when it comes to this M3 Touring on any sort of road – they never fail to be gobsmacked.”
Pat James (aka 2pjz), who took the wheel of the E36 and has owned more cars than most people have had hot dinners, saw it the same way:
“M owners remain second-to-none. They’re enthusiastic and inclusive, but it goes beyond M ownership. Across this Targa I’ve been approached with curiosity by people in regional towns eager to have a chat about the E36 – it’s an icon.”
If prizes were awarded for ending each day with a beaming grin and chatting long after the dinner plates were cleared, call me Michael Phelps. Unfortunately, we were judged on none of that. So my result landed on the scorecard where it deserved: dead last.
Doctor Seuss once said “don’t be sad it’s over, smile because it happened”. But Doctor Seuss can kick rocks, because the gratitude for this experience, in these cars so rich with history, is tinged with sadness that it’s over. Until next year.
This article is proudly presented in partnership with BMW Australia. Thank you for supporting the brands who support Boss Hunting.
