BMW M3 Vs M4: Which Would You Have As Your Deadly Daily Driver

I’m just back from two days of driving both an M3 and M4 coupe through, over and around the best mountains that Austria has to offer (full review and smokey GoPro footage coming soon).

During the trip, we were given a presentation by BMW’s top brass, who pointed something out that surprised me a little. Based on predicted figures, BMW estimates that a massive 61 per cent of sales will go to the M4 coupe during the car’s life cycle, which is followed by 28 per cent for the forthcoming M4 convertible and 11 per cent for the M3 saloon. In the UK, that equates to 5000 M4 and 700 M3 saloon sales.

The reason why this surprised me - after having driven both cars and seeing them in the flesh - was because the M3 made the biggest impression on me out of the two cars (a sentiment shared by many journos on the same trip).

For starters, I prefer the look of the M3. There’s slightly more of it (it’s 7mm wider, 41mm taller and 23kg heavier), it looks more brutish and has an air of cool about it that the M4 simply doesn’t possess. Even if it does sound awesome and go like stink…

It’s also the nicer to drive out of the pair (it’s not quite as rigid which makes it more playful), and comes with grab handles, which is something you won’t find in the M4; according to BMW, the reasoning here is that the M3 is the more practical of the two, which is why it gets the handles and the M4 doesn’t. I’ll remain unconvinced on that one…

If it were my money, however, and if I had the choice between either an M3, M4 or M4 convertible, it’d be the M3 saloon all day long. And not only because of the grab handles, but because of the saloon’s added cool and slightly bigger dimensions. Do you agree? Let’s put this to the vote.