Back to Back M3s

[TD]

Originally Posted by lemming

Very much value the real person feedback for both cars. And the Giulia Ti as a comparator is brilliant.

One notable thing is that neither of you have spoken about driveline lash. I remember back in the E36 days, there was that weird non-linear feeling of engaging the clutch and the car feeling squishy in stop and go traffic. It would be f*cking annoying.

This thread also seems to highlight the value proposition of the G80 M3. Pound for pound, with same performance, why not just get the M3 over the M2? It has more utility and honestly (to me) it looks less try-hard.

Threatened reliability issues be damned, if they sold a manual Giulia QV in the US (or anywhere currently - they sold one in the EU in 2016-2017) it would be in the garage instead of the M3. The dynamics of the Giulia are brilliant. It's a very different experience than the M3, but even giving up 200 HP and being stuck with an automatic, the Giulia can be just as fun to drive as the M3 - in some ways more so as it's just so nimble. If you look, in almost every comparison of the QV against the G80 M3 Comp (both with the ZF 8-spd automatic), the QV came out on top and always due to the joy of the driving experience rather than on pure numbers.

[equ]

Originally Posted by JST

Can’t disagree with any of that. It’s funny that that thing that is hardest to live with about my F80 is the lack of a rear camera or parking sensors. I’m mostly used to it but it would be nice to have — it’s too bad that it’s apparently prohibitively expensive / a pain in the ass to add.

One of my beefs with my wonderful 2013 981S.

I used Pearl Vision for a while. It's all wireless, mostly solar charging. One piece goes around license plate frame. One plugs into OBD port. Then using wifi, you run a phone app. Unfortunately they seemed to have gone out of business, and Apple deleted their app from the store recently. They do work on droid but not as well.

Sad as they were a bunch of ex-Apple engineers and it's well thought put together product.

[JST]

Matt Farah did a similar thing on the Smoking Tire (though the G80 is an AWD comp).


https://youtu.be/pn2aRFuSL2E?si=d53rbiptrcO0lrUh

[lemming]

Originally Posted by JST

Matt Farah did a similar thing on the Smoking Tire (though the G80 is an AWD comp).


https://youtu.be/pn2aRFuSL2E?si=d53rbiptrcO0lrUh

The feedback was fun. Thanks for posting their head to head.

I do drive an ancient hydraulic steering car every day. And it’s also overrated, guys. Just saying. None of the modern cars I own has steering feel. It kind of doesn’t matter to me anymore. What matters to me is turn in bite versus push at turn in.

The power difference sounds like a vast divide.

I could not myself live with a 4000lb car and like it. It’s antithetical to sports car to me. My brain just couldn’t make the two concepts merge. Sorry. At that weight, I’m just going full EV and buying a Lucid Ridiculous or something.

To TD’s point, feels like Alfa makes edgy products. Feels like BMW kind of does….but it feels too workshopped. Too many focus groups or something.

[robg]

Originally Posted by lemming

Sorry. At that weight, I’m just going full EV and buying a Lucid Ridiculous or something.

+1

I've kind of lost interest in ICE performance sedans due to EVs. The point of such cars is to blend practicality/performance/fun into a single daily drivable package. But, I just dont find any of them compelling enough to overcome the BS. The only current sedan on the market that sounds like it could maybe be enough in terms of engagement would be the CT5 blackwing with a manual. But, its still a pretty large car (to your point it weighs over 4000) and gets terrible fuel economy; would I really want to daily drive such a thing? Not really. OTOH, I do find the instant torque of an EV something that you can enjoy in everyday driving situations. So, I think I'm probably going to focus on figuring out the right sports car to buy to scratch my enthusiast itch for that 10% of the time when I could really enjoy it.

[JST]

As Farah points out, the manual G80 is a very different proposition (and despite the extra power is much closer in terms of the way it drives to the F80).

The weight issue is huge, though. I think it was the Savage Geese guys that posited that Biermann leaving was the difference between “caring about weight” and “not giving a shit.” Not sure how true that is but it is remarkable how stark the difference is.

And yeah the F80 and G80 both have numb steering but if I’m going to be honest, so did the E90.

[zach]

I want an G80 but it's difficult to justify given I live in the city and have a 987 and v8 X7. The M3 sits somewhere between those and would be fun as hell but certainly a silly luxury purchase. That said, the last manual transmission M3...

[robg]

Originally Posted by zach

I want an G80 but it's difficult to justify given I live in the city and have a 987 and v8 X7. The M3 sits somewhere between those and would be fun as hell but certainly a silly luxury purchase. That said, the last manual transmission M3...

Yeah - the m3 is more of a “do it all” car but it sounds like you have those bases covered already


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