It won’t be long before BMW will give the M3 a Life Cycle Impulse but there’s still time to admire the sports sedan in its pre-facelift guise. We spent some quality time with this non-Competition G80 at the Welt in Munich where it stood out from the crowd courtesy of an eye-catching matte paint from the Individual catalog. Finished in the somewhat rare Frozen Sunset Orange, the car is certainly not for people who want to fly under the radar.
Few other colors are as striking as this, and BMW opted to showcase the M3 with the already classic 826 M wheels finished in black. Over the years, we’ve learned to live with the overly tall front grille, especially since it doesn’t look as polarizing when there’s a license plate partially covering the gargantuan kidneys. The LCI coming soon won’t bring substantial changes at the front, save for a new pair of headlights likely to eschew laser tech in favor of a matrix LED setup.
The facelift will be mild considering the spy shots we’ve seen thus far showed prototypes with the rear end virtually carried over from the pre-LCI M3. That’s not all too surprising since the regular G20 3 Series didn’t change all that much when it was updated in 2022. Look for the G80 to stick around until 2027 or so, before making way for an electric model on the Neue Klasse platform.
Meanwhile, BMW is updating not just the sedan but also the M3 Touring, even though the G81 has been around for a couple of years. The M4 Coupe G82 and M4 Convertible G83 are also due for a nip and tuck with the same modest styling revisions. That said, the coupe will spawn a higher-performing M4 CS later this year when it will become the brand’s fastest production vehicle around the Nürburgring. Come 2025, the long-roof M3 is also going to receive the CS treatment.
