The new BMW M4 costs £76k (but can be specced over £100k)

Stuck at home? Missing out on important school lessons? Well, here’s some Top Gear Maths for you, starting with inflation. Case study? The new BMW M4 Competition. It’ll cost UK buyers, BMW has announced, a princely £76,055.

Opting for the four-door M3 Comp saves you a few thousand of Her Majesty’s pounds: it’s £74,755. And that’s a lot. When the last M5 arrived – the first turbo one, back in 2011 – it was eye-wateringly pricey at over £70k. Heck, there was a fuss when the M3, back in its V8 era, first tripped over the £50k barrier.

Then again, all of the new M3’s numbers are bigger. It now pumps out 503bhp, so it’s very nearly as powerful as an M5 from the last decade. Quicker off the mark too, because it’s now all-wheel drive: BMW reckons you’ll hit 62mph from dead still in 3.9 seconds. 

And there’s more equipment – even on the outgoing M3 and M4, a manual gearbox was originally standard, and you had to fork out another couple of grand to get the twin-clutch paddleshift gearbox. Almost everyone did. 

So for this M3 and M4, an automatic gearbox is standard. And the price swells up and takes to the sky, like a hot air balloon made of, erm, money. 

Course, you get other stuff. A ten-stage traction control system. Extra body stiffening braces. Those nostrils. Oink-oink. They’re worth a few quid, right? 

If you play fast and loose with the options, this can become a six-figure 3 Series, scarily easily. Tempting carbon trim, lightweight bucket seats, ceramic brakes and an optional ‘M Drift Analyser’ which records the length, time and angle of your latest will all surge the price tag towards new M5 Comp territory. Yikes.

And now for your maths homework: anyone care to venture what time the new M3’s going to do on the Nürburgring? There may be some clues in this video...