Finalists

MOTORTREND PERFORMANCE VEHICLE OF THE YEAR 2022

- Christian Seabaugh, Mike Floyd, Scott Evans, Jonny Lieberman, Alexander Stoklosa

2022 BMW M3 Competition

PROS Engine apparently runs on Tannerite. Balanced chassis Stupid quick

CONS Too many drive mode settings for some. AWD adds some heft. That face

There are two places where you'll probably never catch a glimpse of the new BMW M3's garish front end: from its driver's seat and, for anyone sharing the road with one, from another car. Why? Because it'll take some fairly exotic machinery to keep up with, let alone pass, the M3 Competition.

Even when the M3 is coming at you, it'll streak by so fast, those nostrils will blur into wider shapes that recall BMW's kidney grilles of yore. Whatever your thoughts about it, BMW did ensure the M3's sniffing schnoz shovels a ton of air into the engine bay, where its fierce 3.0-liter twin-turbo inline-six lies.

BMW says the engine produces 503 hp and 479 lb-ft of torque. But man, it seems like there's no way this 1-6 punches below 600 hp. Equipped with BMW's xDrive AWD, the M3 Competition we tested shoots to 60 mph in 3 seconds flat. The quarter-mile is dispatched in 11.1 seconds at 124.7 mph. That's Porsche and performance electric vehicle territory.

The 630-hp Lamborghini Huracán STO bests it by just two tenths to 60 (2.8 seconds), and the advantage of the 720-hp Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series is even slimmer. How can we reconcile that the M3, despite loading each horse with 7.8 pounds, somehow keeps up with those supercars, which carry 5.1-5.4 pounds per hp? We can't. Historically, BMW has underrated its beefier engines, but this is egregious.