16,200 "M" Cars

Though it's personal, 2008 marks my 30th anniversary in automotive journalism. I joined the editorial department of an automotive magazine in 1978, right after graduating. The supercar boom had passed, but its afterglow lingered.

In my early days as a junior editor, I often had the chance to encounter glamorous supercars such as theFerrari308, theLamborghiniJalpa, thePorsche911 Turbo, and the Lotus Esprit. If I was lucky, I even got to take the wheel.

Among them, the one that impressed me the most at the time was the BMW M1. It was BMW's first supercar, featuring a 3.5-liter inline-six engine mounted midship.

BMW Motorsport was established in '72 as a racing entity under BMW. Its first production car, born from that factory, was the M1, which debuted in '78. Eight years later, in '86, the first-generation "M3" was launched. It was a special "3 Series" created for Group A racing homologation.

The M3's Latest Transmission: "DCT"

The latest M3 sedan and coupe feature a completely new 7-speed sports gearbox: "M DCT Drivelogic." This is a "Dual Clutch Transmission" (DCT) jointly developed by M GmbH and Getrag.

This transmission, which replaces the "SMG" (Sequential Manual Gearbox) of the previous M3, is, as the name suggests, a two-pedal gearbox with a twin-clutch system. The gear sets are divided into two: odd-numbered gears (1, 3, 5, 7, and reverse) and even-numbered gears (2, 4, 6), each with its own wet clutch.

While one clutch is engaged, the other anticipates the next gear and stands by. Although the single-clutch SMG managed to reduce its shift time lag to 50 milliseconds in its final version, the M DCT, due to its structure, has eliminated torque interruption entirely.

This new gearbox exceeded expectations.