The 2021 BMW M4 Review: Ugly, Sure, But Still a Fun Sports Car

Pity the poor BMW M3 coupe. A couple decades ago, it was the creme de la creme of mid-priced sports cars; more affordable and roomier than the Porsche 911, better-made than the Corvette, and more powerful and focused than the regular-production two-doors being turned out by its fellow Germans. The E30 and E36 generations (the latter especially in more powerful Euro form) were (and are) rightly venerated as exceptional examples of sports cars done right — playful, powerful and entertaining at any speed. The fact that they offered more usability than your average speed machine, well, that was just icing.

Since then, though, things done changed. Cylinders started dropping away; sure, power increased anyway, but so did size and weight. Intra-national competitors — your C63 AMGs, Audi RS 5s and Porsche Caymans — started cropping up en masse; at the same time, American carmakers began transforming once-slovenly muscle cars into focused corner-carving, track-slaying machines. Even the iconic name wound up changing as part of BMW’s rebranding; the once-coupe-only M3 suddenly became reserved for the sedan version of the performance car, while the two-door was forced to follow the same naming convention that turned the 3 Series coupe and convertible into the 4 Series and become the M4.

And then came the 2021 model year, and the arrival of the G80-generation cars…and that face. No matter what else was stacked against them, the G80 M3 (and G82 M4) of yore at least always had their looks. The newest version, however, has been given an M-specific version of the Angry Birds pig face found on the new 4 Series coupe, one with more angles than The Sting and air intakes seemingly large enough to suck in turkeys.