Four used BMW M cars for less than a basic new 1-series
£32k will buy you a bog standard 2025 120 or a 552bhp M6, and many greats besides…
Are new cars too expensive, or are great used cars too cheap? It’s probably a mix of both. But either way the £32k you’d have to pay in 2025 for the cheapest BMW on sale – the most basic front-driven 1-series – is a budgetary net within which many great used M cars can be snared.
Whether you want a howling naturally-aspirated motorsport derived V8, one of the best M cars of the last decade, a cult classic or an Autobahn-busting 552bhp blunderbus, boggo 1er money will buy you M cars from across its varied history.
BMW M3 (E92, 2007 - 2013)
What’s the finest engine M has ever produced? Excluding the McLaren F1’s S70 V12 obviously. It’s a toss up in our minds between the 320bhp S54 3.2-litre straight-six, most famously found in the E46 M3 and Z4 M and… drumroll… the 414bhp S65 V8 found in the E9X generation of M3s.
Today, in a world of instant punch and flat torque curves from electric motors and tailored turbocharged motors, having to actually manage the power band of this characterful yet peaky engine is something of a novelty – the 8400rpm redline the stuff of near-fantasy for under £30k, soundtracked by a howling exhaust and the thumping induction pulse that only individual throttle bodies can deliver.
Aside from the engine, the M3 is a balanced, playful and poised sports saloon/coupe. What a joyous thing that you can get with pleasingly low miles, from a later, even better model year and in great condition, within our £32k budget. Just make it a car that’s had the rod bearings done, with proof…
BMW M2 Competition (F87, 2018 - 2021)
All is not villainous when it’s turbocharged in M car land. Some of their greats come with forced induction. One example is the F87 M2 Competition, not just one of their best efforts of the last decade but also, one of the great glow-ups. The original M2 left us slightly bemused on eCoty 2016. It felt wayward and lacked composure – it was a car you were nervous of rather than one you could find a natural flow with.
Two years later the M2 Competition arrived and it was an enormously convincing debug. Most see the Competition as a better car purely for it getting a proper M engine – an 404bhp S55 heart transplant from the M3 and M4. But no, it was the new-found balance and poise. In Competition spec it became the spiritual E46 successor we always wanted it to be. For £32k there are some sweet examples out there – not the best but certainly nowhere near the bottom of the M2 Comp barrel.
Z3 M Coupe ‘clownshoe’ (1997 - 2002)
Great engines, great dynamics – stuff you expect of BMW M, covered off nicely with the cars above. Occasionally though, M goes all out on character and just downright weirdness – the Z3 M Coupe being a case in point. This was a car we spent a great deal of time in when it was new. It was far from perfect dynamically, but it was oodles of fun – the car for which everyone made a beeline at the end of the day. The recipe is compelling – tiny body and four-square stance, S54 straight-six, albeit in an earlier spec than that found in later E46 M3s and especially the Z4 Ms that succeeded it, and a five-speed manual transmission.
To drive it put many in mind of a Bavarian TVR. It was bombastic, hairy chested, really quite capricious if not learned over time and respected. The design was a point of great conjecture and controversy when new. A quiet minority enjoyed it, many loudly decried what was unceremoniously christened by some as the ‘Clownshoe’ and the ‘Hearse’. Today, shooting brakes are perhaps the ultimate cult cars and the old M Coupe is now held in high regard. For a minute there, some thought the M Coupe was a car set for modern classic super stardom and silly prices. Now you can get a mid-tier car for less than a new 1-series. Still, we could understand someone sniffing at one of these for £32k when 986 Boxsters are around for a sixth of that…
BMW M6 Gran Coupe (F12, 2012 - 2019)
One thing M has built significant proficiency in over recent years is developing walloping power, if perhaps at the expense of the character of the engines above. Its 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 is still a monster today, so can you imagine the impact it had when it first appeared in the F10 M5 and F12 M6? We’re ignoring the X5 M obviously…
The M6 Gran Coupe especially was to many eyes a rare BMW M car, in being really quite svelte and stylish. It’s a 552bhp swept-back super GT – a slightly less ostentatious, slightly more dynamic alternative to a Bentley Flying Spur. It was never the last word in engagement and deft dynamics. In truth, they’re quite large and lumbering in the eyes of BMW M purists but in terms of punch for your pounds, they’re an awful lot of car. Competition pack cars with acceptable miles and not in a spec you’d associate with narcotics distribution are rare but do exist within budget, too.
