How fast is the new BMW M3 Competition xDrive?

BMW claims the xDrive system fitted for the first time ever to a 3 Series-shaped M car takes 0.4secs off the 0-62mph time. It’s a bit of a dry stat, even if the resulting 3.5secs is impressively fast.

Fastest car in its class, but then there aren’t many similarly potent rivals about these days. Audi seems to have forgotten about the RS4 (it doesn’t seem to have been updated in yonks) and at the moment all we can do is guess the next-gen C63 will be as mighty as we hope – if not expect given it’s going to use a four cylinder hybrid.

Anyway, the standard M3 is not slow. The last-gen F80 car had rubbish launch control that basically dialled in a bunch of revs and dumped the clutch. Cue wheelspin, but little forward motion. If you got it to 60mph in under 4.5secs that was some achievement. The new one is much better. When we tested it earlier this year it shot to 60mph in 3.6secs (against a 0-62 claim of 3.9), and 100mph in 7.8secs. There’s evidence for what we’ve previously written about how well the rear diff works.

The 4WD one does exactly what it promises and takes about four tenths of a second out of that. 0-60mph? 3.18secs. 100mph in 7.39secs.

Now stop and look at those figures for a moment. Because that’s unhinged isn’t it? I know we said almost exactly the same a couple of years back about the M5 when it launched (and did 60mph in 2.99secs, 100mph in 6.77), but the new M3 is in a speed zone alongside Porsche’s flagship Panamera Turbo S e-Hybrid (3.0secs to 60, 7.37 to a ton), the Honda NSX (3.32/7.34), Alpina B5 (3.39/7.48) plus various E63s and RS6s.

It’s moved up a class of performance in other words. And as ever I have no answer to where this actually stops. Is the M3 a better car for having this level of performance? No, but the most engaging cars tend to be those that have a fraction more power than the chassis can handle. And the trouble for the M3 is that it has a massively competent chassis. Safety demands that, technology protects it, so more power goes in to make the driver feel good and so the vicious circle goes. And the numbers get sillier.