This mouths EVO mag, The Ultimate M Test
Discussion
My overall feeling having read the feature was 'so what' I'm afraid. Yes it contained some great photography - only to be expected from EVO - but it seemed like an awfull lot of pages to tell us nothing new written by a guy/guys struggling to come up with enough copy. I doubt there will be anyone here who will be suprised by the result and in all honesty I think the feature could have been written by the guys involved without even leaving EVO Towers. Very very difficult to come up with a 'new' angle for a feature like this I do appreciate but then if that's the case why bother? Great to see all the cars together though.
As ever written words (especially my clumsey ones!) lend a certain harshness to what is meant as a general observation so don't jump all over me if you dissagree
As ever written words (especially my clumsey ones!) lend a certain harshness to what is meant as a general observation so don't jump all over me if you dissagree
E34 'better' than the E39? Well, the E34 version is fabulous, intoxicating, generally wonderful and yes, as the article pointed out, an almost perfect blend of power - chassis mating.
Then you jump in an E39 and if you employ the same driving techniques (with DSC defeated) it takes only a short while before the sense of omnipotence shines through. STILL the best all round, performance saloon to date, imho.
The article was a coup d'etat from the off, alas.
It's just borderline disingenuous to devote 2 paragraphs to the V10 cars and simply dismiss them on the pretext of 'electronic strangulation.'
I say this since evo itself - along with many other publications - have supported the general accolades fired at the car(s) this powerplant graces.
To spend a huge wedge of available text space fawning over the original M3 betrays this predisposition and if I'm being harsh, predetermined bias.
Of course it's a fabulous old girl, the E30 but please, the full ensemble served up by the more modern iterations are not just quicker (note the way in which speed itself is now loosing fashinable currency amongst even the peformance car reviewing cognoscenti [more, capitulatory hand wringing in the face of envirofacism?]) but enormously capable in the more legally exploitable zones of indulgence.
Can I get my M6 any more sideways where feasible than my old M5? Yes and then some - with the bloody traction ON! Take it off and you simply marvel at the M diff.
Tell me the sound isn't son of Gallardo(ish) on a charge and I'll take up Big Issue distribution.
Steering feel, organic, free range helm purity? Oh, ffs!
Utter, UTTER bo
ocks.
I learnt this emphatically whilst running the E34 alongside the E39: I had too felt what I had presumed to be a burgeoning sense of analogue splendour and against what had been criticised as the desensitised, over servoed goo of the 'straight ahead' in the newer car but nope, this 'failing' was a duff conclusion, too: the newer car was simply more refined, better sprung and I contend, mistakenly victim to cries of lardacity.
You only need a few minutes on a B road to dispell such lingering misgivings.
Whatever panoply of tweaky progress was infused into the E39 to effectively best the E34, so engendered the offspring.
M5 or 6 on a well sighted B road? Well as I've said before, it's ruddy great Caterham time.
Biased, yes but I maintain the charge of stitch up.
The Grumpy Nord.
Then you jump in an E39 and if you employ the same driving techniques (with DSC defeated) it takes only a short while before the sense of omnipotence shines through. STILL the best all round, performance saloon to date, imho.
The article was a coup d'etat from the off, alas.
It's just borderline disingenuous to devote 2 paragraphs to the V10 cars and simply dismiss them on the pretext of 'electronic strangulation.'
I say this since evo itself - along with many other publications - have supported the general accolades fired at the car(s) this powerplant graces.
To spend a huge wedge of available text space fawning over the original M3 betrays this predisposition and if I'm being harsh, predetermined bias.
Of course it's a fabulous old girl, the E30 but please, the full ensemble served up by the more modern iterations are not just quicker (note the way in which speed itself is now loosing fashinable currency amongst even the peformance car reviewing cognoscenti [more, capitulatory hand wringing in the face of envirofacism?]) but enormously capable in the more legally exploitable zones of indulgence.
Can I get my M6 any more sideways where feasible than my old M5? Yes and then some - with the bloody traction ON! Take it off and you simply marvel at the M diff.
Tell me the sound isn't son of Gallardo(ish) on a charge and I'll take up Big Issue distribution.
Steering feel, organic, free range helm purity? Oh, ffs!
Utter, UTTER boocks. I learnt this emphatically whilst running the E34 alongside the E39: I had too felt what I had presumed to be a burgeoning sense of analogue splendour and against what had been criticised as the desensitised, over servoed goo of the 'straight ahead' in the newer car but nope, this 'failing' was a duff conclusion, too: the newer car was simply more refined, better sprung and I contend, mistakenly victim to cries of lardacity.
You only need a few minutes on a B road to dispell such lingering misgivings.
Whatever panoply of tweaky progress was infused into the E39 to effectively best the E34, so engendered the offspring.
M5 or 6 on a well sighted B road? Well as I've said before, it's ruddy great Caterham time.
Biased, yes but I maintain the charge of stitch up.
The Grumpy Nord.
Cliffv8 said:
and they say they struggled to find an owner with a two door e36 coupe keen enought to join the test, well they only needed ask 
To be fair, i recieved a very nice e-mail for Ian Eveleigh (sub editor) asking if they could use my E36 evo coupe, but due to the amount of time he needed on test (3 days in south Wales), i just couldn't get that sort of time out of work at short notice.I am seriously gutted i couldn't oblige as it could have been such a great experience.....Oh well, win some loose some.
No mention of release dates on their website.
derestrictor said:
It's just borderline disingenuous to devote 2 paragraphs to the V10 cars and simply dismiss them on the pretext of 'electronic strangulation.'
Can I get my M6 any more sideways where feasible than my old M5? Yes and then some - with the bloody traction ON! Take it off and you simply marvel at the M diff.
Tell me the sound isn't son of Gallardo(ish) on a charge and I'll take up Big Issue distribution.
M5 or 6 on a well sighted B road? Well as I've said before, it's ruddy great Caterham time.
Biased, yes but I maintain the charge of stitch up.
The Grumpy Nord.
We all drove the M5 and M6 plenty of miles and although I'd driven them both many times before, they really did not fare well when considering the qualities of a great M-car. I drove one 60 mile stint in the M6 and got out feeling completely underwhelmed. Yes it was quick once wound up through the revs, but the E92 M3 was more immediate (at low revs), much more biddable in terms of getting it sideways at will an felt more connected with the road. The M5 and M6 both felt like towering achievements, but compared to the E30 M3 or M3 CSL they were nowhere near as much fun to drive. Can I get my M6 any more sideways where feasible than my old M5? Yes and then some - with the bloody traction ON! Take it off and you simply marvel at the M diff.
Tell me the sound isn't son of Gallardo(ish) on a charge and I'll take up Big Issue distribution.
M5 or 6 on a well sighted B road? Well as I've said before, it's ruddy great Caterham time.
Biased, yes but I maintain the charge of stitch up.
The Grumpy Nord.
And Paul (Pugsey) maybe John B and Viv didn't put across our impressions well enough but the revelation we discovered from assembling the best M-cars of the past few generations was that the newer M-cars are loosing the qualities of the driving experience, where more power supposedly equates to more thrills, but actually in the process it results in less involvement, less tactility of response and less fun.
We all had the opportunity of picking whichever keys we wanted and surprisingly (to us) it wasn't the newer M-cars that were most in favour.
This is one of these tests that you 'think' you know the outcome of, but when you actually drive the cars together you come to a different conclusion. Even though I'd driven hundreds of miles in the E92 M3 before this test I really didn't know how it would fare when lined up against my CSL, nor whether it would feel too closely related to the E39 M5. In that respect, yet again, I was surprised by the outcome.
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