Well, here it is, slithering about on our track.
Look at that. I mean, that's just... the M3 signature dish.
But, straightaway, I must tell you there's a bit of a niggle.
If you stick the tail out in a corner, which you can easily, because it's an M3,
you'll find it very hard to hold the drift,
because the power steering is now electric rather than hydraulic.
Going round a corner like this is like
wrestling with the tail of an excitable crocodile.
It's not just hard to hold the slide.
It's also hard to straighten up again afterwards.
See what I mean?
Now, I admit, in the real world,
this isn't going to be much of a problem...
ever, if I'm honest.
And anyway, you can solve it by taking the steering
out of Sport Plus mode and putting it in Comfort mode.
Then everything is fine.
Oh, yeah!
In fact, everything is more than fine. Everything is absolutely sublime!
I'm not going to beat about the bush. This car is... utterly brilliant.
It's well made. It's got seating for four. It's got a decent-sized boot.
It's comfortable. It's quiet. It's got lots of standard equipment.
In many ways, this car is like the perfect dog.
It's loyal. It's cute. It doesn't chase sheep,
It doesn't go wrong all the time and yet, if a burglar comes,
it has the power to rip his throat out.
"Look at me! I'm an attack dog now! I'm fierce and bitey!"
And that really is that.
It is a fabulous, wonderful car and if you have £56,000 lying around,
you should buy one immediately.
Or should you?
Because today, we live in strange times... environmental times.
And BMW has another new car which reflects that.
It's one of the most talked-about cars in years and this is it.
It's called the i8 and it's a hybrid,
which means it's powered by an electric motor
and a tiny three cylinder, 1.5 litre, turbo-charged petrol engine.
That doesn't sound like much of a recipe.
Sounds like a sort of glorified Toyota Prius,
but let me give you the headline figures.
This car does 155 miles an hour
and 134 miles to the gallon.
And because it's so economical,
you get a £5,000 grant from the government if you buy one.
It's exempt from the London Congestion Charge
and the road-tax bill, as you can see here, is... nil.
It really does sound, then, like this car answers everyone's prayers,
but does it?
Are pure-bred petrol heads like me really going to say:
"Mm, yes, what I really want next is a three-cylinder hybrid?"
Well, that is what I'm going to try and find out.
I'm going to set the satellite navigation for Whitby in North Yorkshire
Now, the reason I've chosen Whitby is,
A, you get the best fish and chips in the world there.
And B, the M3 we saw earlier is waiting for me there,
which means, when I arrive, I will face a simple choice.
Will I want to drive home in that or this?
With the sat nav looking for the most economical route to Whitby,
I put my sensible head on and settled down for a 200 mile fact-finding mission.
You have a choice of three driving modes.
Number one, electric drive. That's the electric motor only.
Gives you a range of 20 miles, 19 more than you get from a Prius
and probably enough for you to do your morning commute.
Then, if you move the gear lever over here, you engage sport mode.
That means the electric motor and the petrol engine
are working together to give 352 horsepower
and it makes the car sort of firm and bitey and Nurburgringy.
But, since we are on the A1, I shall go for... comfort mode.
Lovely.
And it really was lovely.
I know there's an electric motor in the front,
driving the front wheels through a two-speed automatic gearbox.
I know there's a petrol engine at the back,
driving the rear wheels through a six-speed automatic gearbox.
I also know there's another small electric motor at the back,
filling in the gaps and doing all sorts of clever things.
And yet, sitting here,
this car feels no weirder to drive than that...
whatever it is, that hatchback thing there.
I've got a steering wheel, gear lever, accelerator, brake
and Ken Bruce on the radio.
How normal is that?
BBC Radio 2!
But there's a problem.
If you're driving in comfort mode,
you're not really charging up the batteries
and, eventually, they are going to go flat.
One solution is to turn off the motorway and charge them up at the mains,
but, as you're about to see, this is not to be recommended.
"Connect your vehicle and validate."
Look, I can operate a Hoover!
Oh, this is stupid!
Well, it must... It must be charging.
It's plugged in, so...
I shall go and get a cup of coffee.
After an hour, I went back to the car and found
that the charging point hadn't worked.
If you had a pure electric car, you would be completely stuffed,
but this is not a pure electric car.
So, I'm not.
I can either drive along without the batteries,
or I can put the gear lever over here to engage sport mode
and then they're being charged up, as I drive along.
What's more, in sport mode, the i8 is properly fast.
I scoffed when BMW said they were going to make a hybrid
that was as fast as a 911, or a Chevrolet Corvette, but...
it really is!