A FACE ONLY AN M3 ENGINEER COULD LOVE

OH, THAT HORRIBLE NOSE. BUT CAN THE DRIVING EXPERIENCE CARRY THE DAY?

- JONNY LIEBERMAN

Any new BMW M3 is a big deal to the car enthusiast community. Forget for a moment what the car actually is, and focus instead on understanding what it represents. The M3 is the souped-up, hot-rodded, better-to-drive version of the traditional “ultimate driving machine,” the BMW 3 Series. The 3 Series is supposed to be a driver’s car right out of the box; the 3 Series after BMW’s M Division performance gurus have fiddled with it? We’re talking hopes and dreams here.

It will never be cheap, but this level of M performance should be somewhat attainable. M3s tend to look pretty good, too, going all the way back to the swole-fendered, deep-chinned, bewinged OG E30 generation of the 1980s. I don’t think I’ll ruffle many feathers by saying fans of fast cars want any new M3 to be handsome, fast, expensive without being exclusive, and—above all else—wonderful to drive. The all-new G80-generation 2021 BMW M3 isn’t that exact car. So, what is it?

It would be a dereliction of auto scribe duty for me to go one sentence further without mentioning this car’s face. It’s insane. I’ve been staring at it online for months and in person for more than a week. The massive twin grille structures have not grown on me, they do not look better in real life, and I have not gotten used to them. The design is … “ugly” isn’t the word, as that’s too easy. But I do have a theory about why. For the most part, when people think a car’s front end or face looks good, they’re anthropomorphizing it. That means they project human qualities onto what they see. Headlights as eyes and the grille as a mouth and so on.