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      06-13-2019, 05:31 AM   #7
Efthreeoh
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Drives: The E90 + Z4 Coupe & Z3 R'ster
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Virginia

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The Hack has such great posts. He's spot on with is assessment IMO. Cars have become rolling infotainment pods with a MMI for cell phone geeks. Even BMW doesn't give a shit how they actually feel to drive. The marked difference came with the birth of the F30. Any car is boring with an automatic IMO. Manually shifting the transmission with two limbs keeps you engaged in all situations; hell, FORCES you to be engaged, where as an automatic can let you slip into playing with the stupid iDrive.

I live out in the woods in the mountains near the Shenandoah National Park. We have some great roads out here and I luckily get to drive them every day. I have a plain old E90 325i with a sport package (and E30 325i before that) and a Z4 Coupe. I've had the E90 for 13 years now and the Z4 for 4 and a half. The 3rd BMW is my wife's 22 year old Z3 we've had since new. I still look forward to driving everyone of them. The Z3 is actually my favorite in some ways. Yep, slow as dogfish, but I dropped a Bilstein/H&R spring kit in it 10 years ago and it handles with such visceral appeal it just takes you back to the days when cars were mechanical and you had to interface with them to the point that your attention has to stay on the act of driving. The Hack is right, the Z4 Coupe does the same thing; and I'd bet the M version even more so.

When I was shopping for a sports coupe, I immediately went for a Cayman. Great looking car, and a Porsche. I test drove a low-mile 2008 non-S, with the S wheel package, and to be honest, I did see what all the fuss was about (driving on the street at least), I passed on it. On the way home, I remembered the Z4 Coupe. Has the same engine as my E90. Would fit repair profile, meaning I have all the tools to fix it. I test drove just one, the one I bought. The Z4 Coupe, even in non-M form just drives like it is alive.

I suggest getting a retrograde car, like an E46 M3 maybe, or a Z4M Coupe/Roadster, perhaps a E37 Z3 Coupe. Find the best example you can and clean it up back to almost new spec, and have a fun weekend car.
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A manual transmission can be set to "comfort", "sport", and "track" modes simply by the technique and speed at which you shift it; it doesn't need "modes", modes are for manumatics that try to behave like a real 3-pedal manual transmission. If you can money-shift it, it's a manual transmission. "Yeah, but NO ONE puts an automatic trans shift knob on a manual transmission."

Last edited by Efthreeoh; 06-13-2019 at 09:18 PM..
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