Ask any PHer what their favourite cult classic is and there’s a fair chance they might mention the BMW Z3 M Coupe: a car that was woefully unpopular when it launched in the late '90s - especially so here in Britain - only to find a die-hard following the moment it was taken off sale five years later.
Funnily enough, it wasn’t just buyers who couldn’t wrap their heads around the M Coupe. When Burkhard Goeschel, BMW’s former chief of ‘Special Model Series’, presented the board with a fixed-roof version of the Z3 M Roadster to rectify its dynamic shortcomings partly induced by severe chassis flex, it was immediately dismissed as a waste of time for apparently being too ugly. That didn’t stop Goeschel and a team of Z3 engineers cracking on with the M Coupe’s development in secret, producing a series of prototypes until the board eventually relented and gave the signal to start production.
To appease the bean counters in Munich, the Z3 M Coupe manufacturing costs had to be kept to a bare minimum. Everything from the A-pillar forwards was a direct carryover from the Z3 M Roadster. As were the doors, though the glass, windscreen, roof and boot were naturally bespoke to the M Coupe. Most of the hardware from the Roadster was carried over too, including the E36 M3-derived ventilated brakes and calipers plucked from the E34 M5, while the M-specific dampers were slightly stiffer on the fixed roof car to capitalise on the 2.7-times increase in rigidity over the drop-top. Safe to say the Z3’s floppiness had been well and truly eradicated.
Naturally, the M Coupe pinched its engine from the M Roadster, which in turn took its S50 (or S52 in the States) inline six from the E36 M3 Evolution. That meant 321hp and 258lb ft of torque at launch, though BMW replaced it with the now-legendary S54 motor from the E46 M3 in 2001, upping the power to 325hp while torque remained the same. Interestingly, both versions were offered with five-speed manual gearboxes, meaning those with the S54 were a ratio down versus the same Getrag gearbox in the E46 M3. What’s more, BMW reputedly played about with the gearing to deliberately hamper the S54 car’s performance, because it didn’t want the latest (and potentially greatest) M3 being outclassed by a ‘clown shoe’.
Unfortunately for Goeschel, the M Coupe was a critical and commercial flop. BMW reportedly sold 821 right-hand drive examples of the S50-powered car and only 168 for the S54 generation, of which only 123 were earmarked for Britain. Looks no doubt played a role in that, but it also didn’t help that the M Coupe was more expensive than the dynamically superior M3. That was over 20 years ago, however, and since then the M Coupe has amassed a group of admirers (which it would have dearly liked at launch), including the owner of the Imola Red example you see here. It sold on PistonHeads Auctions a few months back, and the owner was kind enough to let me take it for a spin to see why it’s attracted such a dedicated following.
It doesn’t take long for the penny to drop. An M Power straight-six rarely disappoints, and while the S54 is the more sought-after model, the S50 feels plenty quick enough and sounds magnificent at the heady heights of 7,400rpm. The ratios are long, as is the throttle, so you need to be at least a gear lower to stay on top of the power band. Then there’s the steering, which combined with a fairly firm ride lends to a surprisingly responsive front end. And you’ll be needing it, because the M Coupe does have a reputation for being a touch snappy. Given that its owner wanted it returned without a tree indent in the door, I didn’t get anywhere near to the ragged edge - but it feels like it would need to be worked hard to locate its twitchy side.
Cult classics such as these are so often blighted by handling quirks, questionable build quality or are so single-minded that they only come into their own when the stars align. But the M Coupe feels like the sort of modern classic you could legitimately use every day, with the owner of this car often using it to carry his dog around (and we’re not talking about a chihuahua here). All models came with a dog guard, after all. What a shame this one’s already found an owner, then, but there are plenty of alluring alternatives up on PH Auctions at the moment, such as this delightful Honda S2000 or, if you’ve hankering for an S54, this CSL-wheeled E46 BMW M3. Or you could simply keep checking back on our live auctions page to see if an M Coupe is going under the hammer. You may just be in for a wee wait, given how few were sold…
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