Big Guns to a Fistfight: 900-HP BMWs Drag Race, Who Cares About the Loser?

When Bayerische Motoren Werke set their sights on building a sleeper, they nailed the wow factor right in the head – and they’ve only gotten better and better at it over the last four decades. Come 2023, and nearly every model from the Bavarian lineup has an M-derived add-on. But truth be told, only two thoroughbreds sparkle and shine in the Germans’ stable: the M5 and the M3.

While the former stayed true to its origins and continued to add horsepower to its variable-piston dowry, the M3 had a very different, albeit equally successful, path through life. We won’t go through the somewhat confusing history of the model. Note that it started life as a race car for the road (built for homologation purposes), and it had two doors initially (that would be in 1986).

It was upgraded to a four-door sedan during its second generation (1994 and onward). Still, two decades later, it saw a Siamese brother emerging from its very own platform: the BMW M4 – which was, and still is, an M3 with two doors. Sometimes, Germans demonstrate such refined humor that even the British fall for hook, line, and sinker.

Since we mentioned the M3 and the British in the same paragraph, let’s return to 2023 and see how present-day motoring is BMW M-honored on the left-hand-drive side of the Atlantic. The Officially Gassed vloggers organized a BMW-only showdown. And, because this is the United Kingdom, there’s a catch – or two, to be bluntly honest.

The cars bear the M letter and boast massive tuning; suffice to say that the value of modifications greatly exceeds the list price of each of the two Beemers involved in this event. By the way, it is a drag race over a quarter mile.

The first contender is a proper M car: a BMW M3 – the F80 from yesteryear – with slight modifications to its drivetrain. Well, by `slight,` I mean 900 PS and 1,000 Nm sent to the rear wheels (that’s 888 hp and 738 lb-ft for gearheads from the United States of Automobile).

Of course, the standard M3 from ten years and one generation ago didn’t exactly come from the factory carrying the strategic arsenal of this particular example. This fully-built three-liter straight-six S55 engine has port and polished heads, high-performance valve springs, an externally-gated single turbo kit, methanol-injection cooling, and M5 injectors. That’s why it produces twice the power of the car it is based on.

A seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission puts the tire torture on the ground via the limited-slip differential. This unique M3 is rated at 562 hp/ton (because of its 1.6-ton stripped-interior body-mass index), considerably lower than its adversary.

This night-school-teacher’s-daily-driver-looking BMW M140i from the second generation of the 1 Series packs a nasty bite, thanks to a heap of tuning and tons of steroid overdose. It also relies on BMW’s emblematic three-liter inline-six magnificence to make go-fast magic happen. However, this specific unit went through the gates of combustion hell and respawned as a supercar-obliterating maniac.

It has identical power and torque figures as the M3 (900 German PferdStarke – PS – and 1,000 Newton meters / 888 hp, 738 lb-ft) thanks to a single turbo, a performance exhaust, performance intake manifold with port injection, and a three-step intercooler. An upgraded oil cooler, a custom gearbox cooler, high- and low-pressure fuel pumps, and nitrous injection.

With a gutted interior, this small hatchback tips the scales at under 1.5 tons, giving it a power-to-weight ratio of 610 hp/ton. The eight-speed automatic gearbox also received an upgrade to better deal with the engine’s output and crack the whip on the rear wheels.

The two stages of this face-off quarter-mile fratricide consist of a set of best two-out-of-three rolling start sprints, followed by a classic standing sprint over the 440-yard straight. Mathematically, the lighter M140i is the bookies’ favorite – and crankshaft reality proves the theory: the five-door compact leaves the M3 in the dust in two of the three rounds.

Things turn out dramatically different in the quintessential contest, with the sedan beating the nitrous oxide mutant a clean three out of three. Its best run is an 11.14-second performance at 141 mph (227 kph), marginally faster than the 11.89 seconds and 138 mph (222 kph) for the M140i. In the end, the conclusion – or should we call it confusion? – is this: finding a displacement replacement doesn’t guarantee undisputed authority at the track, but it sure does leave the door wide open for yet one more round of cubic money arson.