Is This Competition Pack E92 BMW M3 M Car Perfection?

If you’re a traditionalist, it’s easy to feel a bit fatigued with BMW’s current M performance cars. The M5 is now a 2.4-tonne hybrid Heffalump, the M3 has gone four-wheel drive only, the M8 is a sort of nothing car, and the less said about the XM, the better. It’s only really the rear-drive, optionally-manual M2 that’s keeping the faith, and it’s almost definitely the last of its kind.

Thankfully, the second-hand market offers plenty of Bavarian delights for those a bit jaded with the modern M range, and have we found a doozy.

We can argue until the cows come home about the greatest generation of the M3, but the E90 makes a very good case for itself. The only one to ever feature eight cylinders, it was a proper hero of an engine, a 4.0-litre naturally aspirated V8 codenamed S65. It revved out to over 8000rpm, and produced 414bhp.

Any M3 of this generation is tempting, but this one has a lot more going for it. It’s a coupe (which means it’s officially an E92), the body style everybody wants, but more importantly, its original owner ticked a little box for option code 7MA when they were specing it.

That, in non-nerd speak, is the Competition Pack, which gave the E92 firmer damping, a 10mm ride height drop, a carbon roof, and a set of utterly delicious lightweight 19-inch alloys inspired by the ones from the wonderful E46 M3 CSL. This one also comes with the much sought-after option of Electronic Damper Control, which allows the selection of three different levels of damper stiffness.

There’s also an M Performance exhaust and a carbon-fibre plenum and intake from Eventuri for getting an ever nicer roar out of that S65. The best option on this car, though, is actually a lack of an option, because it was one of only around 30 Competition Pack cars in the UK to be ordered with the standard six-speed manual gearbox.

Having covered just 33,000 miles since 2013, it’s now heading up for auction with Collecting Cars where, at the time of writing, the highest bid is £16,500. With six days still to go on the sale, we suspect that’s going to go up. Quite a bit. Oh, and if you were wondering, the seller’s keeping a hold of the 3D gel plates that are on the car at the moment. Thankfully.