Short Take Road Test
"This is just as bad as a Corvette, except it has a back seat," muttered my wife, Mary, and she was not employing bad to mean good in the modern urban vernacular. Mary has developed an aversion to riding in Corvettes with me because the powerful plastic sports cars always seem to stimulate my aggressive driving tendencies. She had correctly perceived that the BMW M3 convertible has precisely the same effect.
To readers of this magazine, this effect is a virtue rather than a vice because, just like the Corvette, the M3 convertible has the combination of effortless energy, secure grip, and linear controls that make any driver feel like Michael Schumacher--and want to emulate him.
Okay, so the M3 convertible can't quite match the quarter-mile time of 13.1 seconds at 111 mph of the latest Corvette convertible. In fact, the M3 convertible's 13.7-second quarter-mile at 104 mph is 0.3 second and 2 mph in arrears of the closed-roof M3 (June 2001), thanks to the convertible's shocking 398-pound weight gain from its power top and various and sundry reinforcements.
Even so, the M3 convertible is by far the quickest droptop on the market with an adult-feasible rear seat. Turn off the traction control, drop the clutch at 4500 rpm, and you rocket to 60 mph in 5.1 seconds. A mere 7.4 seconds later, you'll hit triple digits.
Passing on a back road is simply a matter of using the beautiful shifter to select third gear and planting your right foot. Accompanied by the determined metallic rasp from the rev-happy 3.2-liter six, you will surge around even a double tractor-trailer in astonishingly little time and space. Keep your foot in it, and the M3 convertible will still be pulling strongly when you run into the electronic governor, which truncated the acceleration curve at 157 mph in our car, although the speedo needle was nearly touching the 170 mark.
At top speed, on an admittedly uneven road, the M3 cabrio did want both hands on the wheel. But in most other circumstances, it inspires immense confidence. We found ourselves hurling the M3 into corners ever faster, knowing the car was so well-planted on its big Michelin Pilot Sport tires that we would simply track through as if on a tether. Even in fast corners, midcourse corrections are always an option because there's invariably sufficient bite to tighten your line.
Although the current line of 3-series suffers from steering that is too light (soon to be corrected, BMW promises), the M3's nicely sculpted three-spoke wheel is beautifully weighted and so intuitively responsive that after driving a few blocks, you position the car with the casual accuracy that normally comes from years of ownership. Pretty soon, you're "driving it like a Corvette."
Unlike the latest version of Chevy's sports car, however, the M3 convertible accommodates more than luggage in the rear. Although its back seat is narrower than the one in the sedan, it's roomy enough for two average-size adults for short trips. The trunk will hold a pair of stacked, unfolded garment bags and some odds and ends, even with the top down. With the top up, you can fold a panel out of the way and fit another duffel bag or two.
As you would expect in a $58,000 car, this trunk is neatly trimmed, as is the nappa-leather-upholstered cockpit. All the usual power adjustments and conveniences are standard, including one-touch top operation incorporating a mechanized hard boot. Dropping the top is so painless, we often did it for five-minute trips.
This top is fully lined and impressively tight. Even during an extended 90-plus-mph cruise--people sure drive rapidly in central California--air leaks and wind roar were so low that we almost forgot we were driving a convertible.
Droptop 3-series models have never been paragons of structural rigidity, and this latest M3 still can't match a Corvette convertible in twist resistance. Although stiffer than its predecessor, which is quite an achievement given the new model's much firmer suspension, the M3 convertible will quiver and shake in pothole-infested Michigan. On California roads, however, we rarely noticed any sheetmetal jitters.
The structural quibble aside, if you want a convertible that's fast and has a real back seat, this M3 is the best there is. Just don't let the four seats fool you. It's a sports car, and it encourages you to drive it like one.
Find out why the M3 ranks as one of 2002's 10Best Cars.
