The E46 is widely regarded as the best M3 ever made. If you’re ever in doubt, drive one, and you’ll understand why. Personally, I love the E90 a bit more, but we’ll cover that when we get to it.
The E46 returned to the coupe and convertible body styles only. Looking back at the E36 sales figures, it’s easy to see why. During the E36’s production run, BMW sold 46,525 coupes, 12,114 convertibles and 12,603 sedans. Even so, the sedan lovers made their grievances known, and BMW even went as far as designing but never producing an E46 M3 Wagon. If ever there was a car for life, the non-existent E46 with a manual gearbox is it.
Oddly, the E46 is not that unique in its achievements. It was the first M3 to record a sub-five second 0 to 60 mph time, but that’s about it. Oh, and the now-famous quad exhausts were carried over from the M5 to this generation M3. BMW also updated SMG, which is a fancy acronym for automated manual gearbox. It shifted quickly enough on a track, but it sucked everywhere else.
