After 10 Years Autombile Magazine still Loves the M Coupe

I picked up an Automobile Magazine last week and was surprised by a familiar shape on the cover, an M Coupe (upper right).

In the March 2009 Automobile Magazine 12 Hot Rides cover story, the 10 year old M Coupe got 3rd place among a field of much younger entries. The article, a most potent car for your money comparison, had nothing but good things to say about the M Coupe. It states that "In 1999 design editor Robert Cumberford called the M Coupe ugly, then gave it the design of the year award." He went on to say that the M Coupe "...is not beautiful (at all); brutal is a better word..." "It is the toughest-looking sports car on the world market; not even a Ferrari F50 states an uncompromising visual case as strongly." As far as it's rear biased, "burly" handling Automobile asked if the M Coupe "...was, perhaps, more true to the Porsche 911 ethos than even the new for 1999 911 was."

Automobile did, somewhat disturbingly, rate the Ford SVT and Nissan G35 ahead because they are cheaper and newer respectively, but this is moot because Automobile's M Coupe price of $10,500 is way off. The only M Coupe's I've ever seen around $10K are salvage titled fixer-uppers destined to be track rats and project cars. The economy has taken a toll on the blue book value, but not half to two thirds off in the past year. Rare, ultra low mileage, M Coupes still sell close to the original new value even these dark economic times. The Ford and Nissan pose absolutely no performance threat to the hooligan M Coupe, in fact the only vehicle out of the 12 chosen that even comes close was the last place entry, a Chevy Corvette. It's a regular corvette which does have a slight power advantage. Most regular corvette drivers I've encountered easily stack the odds back in the M Coupe's favor. Their expressions, part shock, part disdain, are classic when viewed from my rear view mirror.

This article is rather insignificant by comparison to the press the M Coupe has received in other magazines. In Auto Week it won a poll for the best American Sports Coupe of all time. Far more significant was the recent Roundel (BMW Car Club of America's magazine) article that listed it as one of the most collectible modern BMW's.

Car magazine's trivial fluff be dammed! I love the M Coupe for the same reasons I always have - there is nothing else like it. It is a unique balance of past and present, retro yet modern. Its styling invokes the iconic Jaguar E Type, MGB GT sports coupe form balanced with edgy modern angles. Under the hood it has one of the best engineered motors produced by mankind mounted to a suspension that requires the care and respect of a classic. It is free of the computerized, video game like novelties employed by modern cars that in my opinion serve only to distance the driver from the driving experience. In the evolution of the sports car the M Coupe's place on the timeline is a perfect intersection of the spirit of the past with the technology of the present.