The Manhart-tuned BMW M3 adds power without adding ugliness

No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you: this is a custom BMW from a German tuning firm, and it isn’t any uglier than it started. Gott im Himmel, et cetera.

Logically named the MH3 GTR, Manhart’s mucked with the M3 until it makes 641bhp and 590lb ft – a decent jump over the 503bhp and 479lb ft.

But of course we live in the age of both turbocharging and timid risk assessors, so there was always more left on the table with BMW’s biturbo straight-six. It’s a simple case of a bit of chip tuning and Berthold’s your uncle, right? Eh, kind of.

Manhart has its own auxiliary control unit called the ‘MHtronik’ (because nothing works in Germany without a tronic suffix), teamed with a stainless-steel exhaust that has the almost-obligatory valves to go from quiet to ‘quit it’ as you see fit.

Brakes are standard given that the G80’s a rare type of M3 – one that brakes as well as it goes – but the coilover suspension, wheels, and wide-boy Michelins are not. Neither is the carbon-fibre rear diffuser, nor the equally carbon-fibred (and likely featherweight) one-piece Recaro bucket seats.

And in terms of that other standard M3 feature... yes, it still has that nose. So if you need to get on the rusted roundabout for another ride, do so now.

But even Manhart’s sick of hearing about the G80 M3’s front end. “Instead of once again discussing the controversial front-end design,” says Manhart, “we would rather focus on the driving dynamics.”

But given that we’re acolytes at the Holy Light of Lightness and our patron saint is Gordon Murray, we’re more concerned about just how far the G80 M3 tips the scales. Eyes don’t actually deceive you, after all – but scales don’t, either.