However, I've owned the M3 for long enough now to be able to come up with a few niggles and complaints (cue assorted thuds and squeaks as the entire evo team fall off their various perches/bar stools in shock).

I've already mentioned the seats, which I can't really fathom. They look superb, adjust in every direction you could possible think of and a few more besides, and seem to offer the perfect driving position but, strangely, still leave a few aches and pains after only an hour or so's driving. Perhaps I'm just not BMW-shaped because it was exactly the same with the 330ci I had a year or so back.

The boffins at M Division seem to have lost their Germanic logic with regards the rev counter. When starting from cold, a ring lights up around its outer edge in 500rpm segments - starting at 4500. These gradually extinguish one by one, effectively raising the rev limit as the engine warms up. However, the last three lights - at 7500, 8000 and 8500 - remain permanently on and I've lost count of the number of times that I've caught them in my peripheral vision and ended up scanning the dash for a warning light. Surely it would be more logical for all the lights to go out and then for the last three to flash on, wagging an admonishing Teutonic finger should you stray too close to the land of bent valves and expensive noises - something which in any event is prevented by a thankfully 'soft' limiter.

No complaints about the fuel consumption though: 24.9mpg, and no, I can't believe it either.