[Flacht3]

God this thread is a dumpster fire.

Fun fact: No one outside of M-owners care. As someone who's owned "real" M cars and non-M BMWs, they're all different flavors of the same thing. Buy what you like and what's going to suit your needs.

If your ego is hurt that badly because now your "Real" M car seems less speshul then you have bigger problems. And making it about the affordability is laughable...I got a major chuckle from that one.

The "real" M cars will be the highest performance variants...if that's what you want then buy it. If it's not then who cares. The lower-end M models are still great cars and it all depends on your needs.

Real world example: I'm in the market right now for a more fun daily driver and I'm considering the M340i simply because it fits my needs better than an F80 M3 (although comparing across generations might not be fair) but I still want a fun, high performance car. Now if I didn't have a GT3 in the garage then yea I'd probably lean M3. But the point is...who the f*ck cares if I choose an M3 or M340i. It doesn't make either of them less of a car.

And back to my first point, 99% of the people on the road don't even think twice about whether you're in a M3 or M340i. To most people, a BMW is a BMW, a Porsche is a Porsche, a Ferrari is a Ferrari, etc. At the end of the day, your M3 is still a high-performance 3-series engineered on the same platform, just like a GT3 is a high-performance Carerra...these cars are more similar than they are different.