► New BMW M3 Touring driven
► Super fast steering
► Read month 2
Is the M3’s steering rack too quick? A chassis engineer at a rival German brand recently described it to me as ‘too much’. CAR’s Georg Kacher has previously described it as nervous too, though the de-restricted autobahn is his second home.
It’s certainly punchy, feeling extremely sensitive to small inputs.
When I tested the M3 saloon against the C63 a couple of years ago, I said the AMG rack had the ‘more relaxed and arguably more natural feeling fixed-ratio steering than the M3’.
But the quick rack is also key to imbuing a 1.8-tonne estate car with such agility, and the M3’s chassis can keep up too thanks to monster bite at the front and a rear end that’s more than capable of following suit.
Read month 2
BMW M3 Touring (month 3)
Price £86,570 (£107,080 as tested)
Performance 2993cc twin-turbocharged straight-six, 503bhp, 3.6sec 0-62mph, 180mph
Efficiency 27.2-28.0mpg (official), 26.1mpg (tested), 229-235g/km
C02 Energy cost 25.7p per mile
Miles this month 1559
Total miles 9996