TOTAL BMW

Hello and welcome to what is, very sadly, the last-ever issue of Total BMW, and I’m incredibly upset to be reporting that news because I’ve loved bringing you this magazine every month. Total BMW is the most recent – but hopefully not final – entry in what has been a wonderful journalism career, and I’ve got to enjoy a dream job I never thought I’d be able to attain. My career has spanned multiple magazines and editorships, and enjoying cars and getting to write about them has been an absolute joy. They say that if you find a job you love, you’ll never work a day in your life, and while I don’t think that’s completely true, this is about as close to that as it’s possible to get. I…

SUPERCHARGED E46 M3 The exterior is a mix of CSL and GTR. The genuine CSL boot lid makes the rear of the car mated with one of our CSL rear diffusers – it’s an undeniably timeless look What we love about doing this for so long is that we sometimes revisit cars we've featured before. It doesn't happen often because of the nature of the modified scene and the fact that people move on to new projects. But some owners are committed to their cars, and once they've been featured, they continue modifying them, evolving them ever further, and this E46 M3 is one of those cars. It belongs to Pete Sidwell (@ psiddy81), a name you might well be familiar with because he is a pillar of the modified…

Supercharged E46 M3 ENGINE: Straight-six S54, fully forged, increased bore to 3.3 litres, Mahle Motorsport custom-machined forged pistons, 10.5:1 compression ratio, Bridgeway forged rods, ARP hardware, ACL bearings, Supertech dual valve springs, fully remanufactured head and valvetrain, painted block, cut-ring head gasket, custom ESS Tuning G580 supercharger kit, black frontmount intercooler, Samco hoses, Eisenmann 83mm Le Mans ‘Sport’ exhaust, 100-cell cats, heat-wrapped exhaust manifolds, PSD secondary air pump delete, PSD dress-up Vanos bolts, Ecumaster EMU Black standalone engine management and Ecumaster S54 loom and associated sensors, carbon/Kevlar engine cover with monochrome badge, custom oil cooler and lines, CSF alloy radiator, electric fan and custom control module, 440lph fuel pump, adjustable fuel pressure regulator, rebuilt Vanos, Powerflex adjustable engine mounts POWER AND TORQUE: 560hp and 454lb ft TRANSMISSION: Getrag Type D…

NEWS BMW News BMW has revealed full details of the awesome new M4 CS. With model-specific chassis tuning and minimised weight, it promises to be a thrilling machine, and production of this hardcore special model will start in July 2024 at BMW Group Plant Dingolfing, with order books opening in late May. The M4 CS is priced from £117,100, with the first deliveries in the UK arriving in Autumn 2024. With 550hp on tap and 479 lb ft of torque available from 2750-5950rpm, the M4 CS sprints from 0-62mph in just 3.4 seconds, with 0-124mph taking 11.1 seconds, and it recorded a 7-minute 21.989-second lap of the Nürburgring’s Nordschleife circuit. The top speed is electronically limited to 188 mph. The M4 CS comes fitted with the eight-speed M Steptronic gearbox, and…

MMR Billet Subframe Insert Kit Designed and engineered in-house in the UK, the MMR rear subframe insert kit for the F2x 1 and 2 Series and F3x 3 and 4 Series chassis is designed to limit movement in the factory rear subframe mounts to maintain proper suspension geometry when cornering and improve the responsiveness of the rear suspension and differential. Installation is very simple, can be performed in under an hour, and is completely reversible. By filling small voids in the four factory mounts, as well as limiting vertical movement, the insert set eliminates the associated slop to ensure that you experience a more refined, connected driving experience, especially when driving at the limit. The billet aluminium parts will not wear over time and offer a lasting performance improvement. These…

I’ve been involved in the BMW world for quite a long time now, the best part of four decades, and during that time, I’ve seen quite a few changes. And the sad thing is that I’m not desperately keen on the way things are going. This isn’t just a BMW problem, as the entire automotive industry seems to be falling over itself to produce electric cars with self-driving capabilities that have fallen out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. I know that I sound like a frightful Luddite, but I just don’t get why manufacturers insist on trying to make cars so difficult to drive these days. Touchscreens are a huge retrograde step in vehicle ergonomics, and I’m convinced that most people who design…