It was the middle of May when BMW revealed the 2023 M3 with the iDrive 8 but this is our first opportunity to see the sedan in a walkaround video with the company’s latest (and greatest?) infotainment system. Already installed on the M3 Touring, the side-by-side screen setup still generates a lot of controversies as some people still prefer the old configuration for two reasons: quick access to physical controls for the climate settings and more cohesive integration of the displays.
The car in question is at the Calgary BMW dealer in Canada, and as you can tell, it has a rather bold specification. The high-performance sedan is dressed to impress in the M3 G80’s launch color – Isle of Man Green – with an equally striking interior in Kyalami Orange. It’s certainly not a spec for everyone as many will prefer something a bit more subdued than this eccentric color combination.
Although the M3 received the iDrive 8 for 2023, it doesn’t count as an actual Life Cycle Impulse since it has the same headlight design as before. It’s a similar story with the M3 Touring as even though the super wagon gets the dual-display configuration, it lacks the sharper-looking lights of the lesser 3 Series models. The M340i and M340d M Performance models have received the full LCI, which comes along with a small gear selector that we would’ve liked to see on the M3 as well.
In mid-2024, BMW will allegedly tweak the design of both the G20 sedan and G21 wagon, which should have ramifications on the M versions (G80 and G81) as well. The current 3er is expected to have an unusually long life cycle that’ll last until early 2027. Meanwhile, 2025 will see the introduction of a fully electric i3 Sedan on the Neue Klasse platform rather than the CLAR architecture used in China for the i3 eDrive35L.
Source: BMW Lee / YouTube
