Write up for new M3 in paper today, I will mail you the article, but this is the crux of what it says ..'Too fast for your own good'.

'With my passion for fast cars I never imagined I would say it but I suspect BMW's new M3, on sale next month, is too fast for the road. Or too fast for the price. At any rate just too fast. But perhaps my views are coloured because a colleague nearly took me off the road in one.

There was a time when being able to accelerate from rest to 60 mph in just over 11 seconds was considered good going. The M3 will have blasted past 100 mph in that time, making it faster than a Porsche 911 Carrera which actually has 47 bhp less power. Put another way that warp drive performance is a bare two-and-a half seconds slower than a two seater Ferrari F360 Modena.

The difference is that the Porsche costs £56,000 without any extras, and the Ferrari £103,000 so you are likely to be older and more mature by the time you can afford to buy and insure either, while the likely price tag for the BMW is just £38,500. A shade too affordable for the young, rich and reckless!

Certainly BMW accepts that many buyers will not be able to cope with the car without lots of help and so fits a special differential to improve rear wheel grip on poor surfaces, an advanced electronic stability and traction control system, phenomenal anti-lock brakes and an accelerator that, unless you press a button, operates in a softer mode so that drivers don't head-butt buses if they prod the pedal too hard while driving around town.

I was a passenger when a colleague who is a good driver, gasped as the M3 hit a mid-corner bump at 90 mph plus on a deserted Spanish hill road and hopped
sideways, landing with the back wheels three or so feet further to the right from where they had started off. It was a frightening few seconds, and he was honest enough to admit that without the stability control system doing its stuff we would have been in the deep ditch at the side of the road at best.

Ten minutes earlier on the Jerez race track, he had been driving with the control system off to explore the car's at the limit behaviour.

And many drivers without access to race circuits will be temptedto do the same on the public highway in order to discover more ofthe car's repertoire, even though Michael Schumacher himself says that for road driving he leaves such systems activated.

Best body colour : Metallic Blue
Performance : To Speed 155 mph (restricted)
0-60 mph 4.8 seconds
16-26 miles per gallon (officially)
Who is it for - People with radar detectors, who live abroad
and do not need a driving license.