50 shades of slay
M3 feels more balanced than the hard-as-nails M4 but the RS4’s practicality in a good-value package is hard to resist Gareth Dean
The M3’s more engaging drive and brilliant chassis outshines in this comparison Sean Parker
As much as I love a good performance wagon, I cannot deny the M3 Competition’s superior dynamic prowess Nikesh Kooverjee
For decades, through all its generations, the BMW M3 has held the upper hand in the battle of the iconic German performance saloons, but diehard Audi Sport fans have always been vocal against this. As the G80-generation M3 Competition arrives in South Africa more or less at the same time as the updated B9 RS4 Avant, it’s again time to pit them head to head to see which heritage hero ends up on top.
THE FIGHTERS
The M3 is mechanically identical to the M4 Competition we tested in our August 2021 issue, aside from the four-door body style. Compared to the F80 M3 M-DCT Competition tested in October 2016, the new M3 is a bit heftier on the scales at 1 738 kg but an increased power output of 375 kW more than compensates for this. What it translates to is a powerto-mass ratio increase of 18 W/kg. The G80 sedan no longer has a perfect 50/50 weight distribution owing to a heavier nose that now has a 53% share of the car’s mass. Furthermore, an eight-speed automatic torque converter replaces the razor-sharp seven-speed
