ON: Would you rather...M3 or M4?

Driving (a BMW motorcycle) all over hell's creation in southern Africa recently, was curious there were very few American trucks visible. The two tour operators (off road and on-road) wanted nothing to do with American. Seems one was a Land Rover fan, other Toyota, and that's about where it ends for those with any brains. Of all the trucks I saw, and it's majority trucks out there in the bush, guessing about 90% Toyota, 9% LR, 1% "other" (some Nissan, one or two Fords, couple other mystery brands).

Other garbage is destroyed in an environment that truly tests vehicles (sand, ruts, all kinds of road weirdness). Most were diesel, too, probably due to the vagaries of actually finding fuel between towns in SA and Namibia. Didn't seem to be abundant fuel stations outside of the urban areas in Botswana or Zim, either. when you saw fuel, you topped off: end of story. One of our expected fuel stops had nothing that day, illustrating the point. We managed.

We've got it pretty easy here in North America. Mexico, I wouldn't know: haven't done a lot of driving-distance there.

I digress.

Somewhat to the theme of the thread, there are a couple kinds of enthusiast car drivers: 1) the purists 2) the techies. The purists are guys in their 40s-50s with means, and memories of "glory days", e.g. the M6's of the mid 1980s, older 2002s, and various other legacy BMW with big or interesting engines and a lot of squirt. Recall the first M3s with those screamin' little 4 cylinders, for example. Porsche purists keep alive the 911 and are causing a fuss over the demise of manual transmissions in some models, notably the GT3...despite that paddle shifters are objectively superior for faster lap times. But if logic ruled, Harley Davidson would go out of business next week. Let's not forget that the heart rules the head for most of these car purchases, consider that a Toyota Camry is "logically" a vastly more-economical buy to go Point A to B.

The techies see new shiny stuff, and embrace it. We've moved to turbos and superchargers? Bring it, baby! No more mechanical steering? Pshaw! Etc. Where's that latest navigation unit?

I'm somewhere in the middle, buying a 911 Turbo (obsolete rear engine car) with manual transmission (obsolete shifter) yet very high tech twin turbos that boost that 3.8L flat six quite well thank you. I could give a hoot, given a car that gives the big V8s a very hard time indeed on any straight line or other contest of speed.

Yeaaaah: however, a side of me likes that idea of that roaring M3 V8. But truth to tell, the new version obviously works well even if it doesn't sound as interesting. Pals of mine have them here at my place of business: better mileage (I assume), lower emissions (ditto), and more torque (definitely). I may examine an M4 at some point, if my Turbo grows tiresome, though mine is paid-for and very quick indeed. Way-fun to drive, those 911s, and a quite-different experience to M3's I've driven.