You’ve got £25,000 to spend on a used BMW M-car and you want the fastest car possible.:
what do you buy? Today we’re going to find out with a three-car drag race. First up,
Mauro, you’ve got an M3. I have, I’ve brought an E92 M3 V8 with a Competition Pack.
And that is not just any M3, Dan, that is my M3. You’re very brave, can you really
get one of those for £25,000? You can, yeah, you can probably get them for about £20,000
now, comp-pack cars start at about £23,000, my one’s still worth about £25,000, and
in fact we got it insured today, my one’s worth about £26,000! But yeah you can get
them, you can get them for £25,000 easily. Next up, Matt, no messing about, you’ve
brought an M5. Yeah, you can’t mess, it’s an F10 M5, this is not mine but you can get
early ones, maybe not quite as good as this, but you can get early ones that are just starting
to duck under £25,000 now. I’ve come along in an M135i. What? It’s not an M. It’s
got an M badge, Dan! It’s not an M car is it? It's got an M badge, it’s an M performance
car, it’s not a full M-car but yes you can pick those up for £15,000 but listen, trust
me, that car deserves to be here, you’ll see why. Now, I know what you’re thinking,
I’ve brought a knife to a gun fight, this isn’t even a real M-Car, this M135i, but
I’ve been a bit sneaky because this is a heavily modified M135i. It’s been tuned
by a company called Birds, up to its B1 specification. Well, Daniel to the left, in some 1-Series,
Mauro to the right in his own car. This should walk it, it’s got 550-odd bhp, 500lb.ft
from 1800rpm. This car, 414 horsepower, 420PS and it is a proper bespoke engine. Red line,
8400 rpm and it makes its peak power at 8300rpm. Now last week we were all going crazy because
we were in a GT3 that made its maximum power at 8600rpm. So we bought this car for about
£17,000 and spent £7000-£8000 on it, so it is a £25,000 car, like the other two.
Now, Birds have uprated just about everything on this car, they’ve fitted new bespoke suspension,
they’ve fitted a Quaife LSD but more importantly for today, they’ve also re-mapped the engine
up to 390 horsepower which in a small car like this is a huge amount. It's also got
420lb.ft of torque, that’s 125lb.ft more than the M3. My car is completely standard
except for the brakes, basically this car shared its engine with the M5 and the M6.
With the V10, BMW cut the front two cylinders off, gave it a bespoke ECU which gives it
200 million calculations a second/ I didn’t make that up: 200 million calculations a second,
and it’s a proper bespoke, motorsport engine. He’s got a manual, he’s not going to use
launch, because this car is a 4.4-litre, twin turbocharged V8, it’s just going to win
isn’t it? It just is, I don’t know why they’re here, really, I don’t know why
they’re going to bother. I’ll get to the end, I’ll have a nap and when I wake up
they might arrive. OK, it’s way down on power on the M5 but it’s almost 500kg lighter,
don’t write off the M135i just yet. Right, I think that Matt is going to win this. And… we're off.
Short shift from 1st to 2nd because there is so much oomph. Come on baby, here
we go. Matt’s gone already. Got a decent launch but look at that M5 go! There is so
much oomph. Those two are specs in the distance. Although, the little M135i is keeping the
M3 very, very honest. Dan is probably two, maybe three car lengths behind but Matt is
10 car lengths ahead. Oh it revs more than 7000 actually when you let it. Wowzers! That
M5 is so fast, so fast, wow! I tell you what, there was not very much in it between the
M3 and this little M135i. Let’s be honest, that was pretty one sided, chaps. It was convincing
wasn’t it, I was amazed how convincing it is. I still can’t quite believe that this
isn’t tuned because it was so fast all the way through the rev range, it is off the scale.
I suspected it would win over the half mile but it’s really heavy, I didn’t think
it would put its power down and still, it got off the line well and then it just disappeared.
Yeah, all the way through, it just feels strong all the way through the rev range and I thought
it would win but you two were just specs in the mirrors going further and further. Yep
and in terms of positioning, it kind of finished exactly how I thought it would finish, I knew
that would win, it’s got 550/560 horsepower but I wasn’t sure about Dan’s car; bit
of an unknown because it’s modified. Did you beat it? I beat it, yeah, I’m quite
pleased to say that. Not by loads, by probably two or three car lengths but nevertheless,
I beat it. Therefore, we’re all agreed aren’t we, we’re all agreed that it’s a moral
victory for the M135i. No, no, no, no, no, hang on, you lost, how’s it a moral victory?
There’s no victory in losing. That's no victory at all. Because it’s not a real
M-car is it and yet it almost had your M3. Naa, nowhere near, nowhere near!
There's only one victory. Yeah, there’s one victory, to be fair it was the M5. The quickest M-car you can get with your £25,000