Evo magazine has taken to the picturesque Anglesey Circuit with a brand new BMW M4 and pitched it against a Porsche 911 Carrera. The M4 (née M3) v 911 debate is one that’s been around for years now. Two cars that compete against each other in the minds of revheads even though they don’t really share the same market segment.
So which will come out trumps on the tight seaside track? Professional racer Marino Franchitti was on hand to find out. It’s worth paying attention to his steering wheel inputs when the in-car footage is compared too.
Oh, can you believe the 991 is now three years old!
7 replies on “VIDEO: BMW M4 v Porsche 911 Carrera”
As someone who has owned various generations of 911s and M3s, I can tell you that whilst the M3s are great cars on the road, it’s not a 911 competitor on the track. Any Porsche sports car come alive on the track. However, I question why the driver didn’t change the throttle setting if he found it too sensitive. I am pretty sure he would have been driving it in “sports plus” when he could have set it to sports or comfort. Yes you can set each of throttle, steering, suspension and gear change individually on these cars.
3:30, he doesn’t expect a bog standard carrera to feel at home on the track? WTF? Overall though, I thought it was quite a good technical analysis of the pros and cons of each car.
No surprises there, you could have put a 997.2 up against a e92 and had the same result, you don’t need to have owned or told people you have owned many cars to know this
Alex, if you have a problem with an enthusiast sharing our personal opinion about cars we have owned that is relevant to the article, perhaps you shouldn’t be here. And how would you know that you would have gotten the same result from a E92 and 997.2 if you’ve never driven them both on the track?
I had an E92 M, at the same time as a Cayman R and a 1M, great time to analyse the the three. The CR was the most feelsome, communicative of the bunch, I can only image how much better a GT3 would be. The only way to know this is to live with them, don’t always rely on magazines and the web of course.
WAY, way too defensive there mate, settle down, i have driven both, and i am still right. BMW need to play too their strengths and that is as a drift, street car
I think both cars are great. But you have to remember an M3/4 is a compromise. It’s essentially a saloon car done up to be a much better performing car. Where the 911 is designed from the ground up to be foremost a sports car that handles, everything else like space, comfort etc is secondary (even though it is not bad at the other things too). The weight also plays a major part in the cars track handling abilities. A lighter car will always be easier to get consistent times out of and not kill the tyres or brakes as quickly.
To me the M4 is a little irrelevant to be honest. But the M3 would be more appropriate, because at least any handling or track sacrifices you might be making over a dedicated sports car like a 911 would be counter balanced by having a proper 4 door saloon you can slot the family in with a decent boot for the shopping as well. Also there is less of a wank factor with 4 door cars over their 2 door counter parts I fell (if they aren’t true sports cars). Yep an M3 with a clutch pedal would be nice.
If I had the type of income to own either I would pick a second hand GT3 of any series or vintage.