With good reason, many people crave to have the best version of a car the manufacturer offers. The M3 is objectively a better car than the M340i in terms of power and performance. However, the M Performance version strikes the perfect balance between the comfort of a regular 3 Series and the drama delivered by the full-fat M version. It also does away with the oversized grille, which many still find too irritating.
At the ongoing 2023 Belgrade Motor Show in Serbia, BMW has brought the M Lite version and showcases it alongside an X5 M60i. Dressed to impress in an Individual Voodoo Blue paint, the sports sedan rides on 19-inch alloy wheels with a two-tone design (792 M style) and has a black front grille among many other dark exterior accents.
With the Life Cycle Impulse introduced last year, BMW is now offering the M340i and M340d with an optional carbon fiber roof but only in the sedan body style. However, the car filmed at the show has a regular sunroof. Speaking of the interior, it has black Vernasca leather upholstery and a carbon fiber trim as two of the options added to the build.
It’s truly hard to find fault with this car, although we know more than a few people would’ve preferred the old iDrive 7 layout with the driver’s display integrated into the dashboard. Those days will soon be over as only a handful of BMWs feature the old look and it’s only a matter of time before all cars will transition to iDrive 8.5 or iDrive 9.
Perhaps a manual gearbox would be the icing on the cake, but that’s what the base M3 is for. We should enjoy this diversity while it lasts because an automaker’s lineup will be greatly simplified in the inevitable electric era. The current 3 Series G20 is expected to remain in production until early 2027, with the M3 G80 to bow out a few months later.
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