After an arduous year of rumour, speculation, ambitious renderings, blurry spy shot and underhanded spec leaks, we finally have BMW’s new M4 Coupe and M3 Sedan before us, and the details are official, at last. Let’s talk official numbers with our first proper look at the highly-anticipated, uber-muscly BMW M car. A turbocharged straight six-cylinder engine produces 317kW of power at 5500rpm, and 550Nm of torque between 1850-5500rpm.
Yip, the 4.0-litre V8 in the old M3 sounded like a Nascar racer but it only made 309kW at 8300rpm (very revvy, yes, we will miss that) but a piffling 400Nm of torque from 3900rpm. That’s the same torque you get from a four-banger Opel Astra OPC these days. So the new BMW M3/M4 is all about crunchy turbo torque this time round but transmission wise, our fear of dual-clutch only has been averted with the news that a six-speed manual transmission (with clever rev-matching on down shifts) is standard across both models, while the seven-speed M-DCT dual-clutch can be optioned.
Although the two-peddle transmission may be the lazy option, it is by far and away the quickest option too, with a 0-100km/h sprint in a supercar-hustling 4.1 seconds. An acceleration time for the manual hasn’t been released yet but we suspect it to be close to that of the previous V8 M3, which could do the deed in the 4.8 second range. The new BMW M3/M4 is roughly 80kg lighter than before, with a curb weight of 1497kg, thanks to a carbon fibre-reinforced plastic roof (CFRP). We can’t wait to have a go come in the second half of 2014.
