The pedigree of the original E30 M3 is obvious all the way from its race-bred four-cylinder engine (designed to rev past 9,000 RPM in race form) and dog-leg five-speed gearbox to those wheel arch blisters specified, not to look cool on the Kings Road, but to accept slick tyres of up to 10” in width.

It has a design purity and simplicity of specification that hardly any modern car, and certainly not a new M3 could hope to match.

Admittedly today's M3 has double the power but it isn't all about BHP.

To really understand the M3 you need to get behind the wheel and drive one, and really drive it.

Get hold of it by the scruff of the neck and give it the ‘Full Monty’ and you'll be approaching automotive nirvana.

Today the E30 M3 in any of its iterations is a wonderful device, but it's the way the car handles combining brilliantly crisp turn-in with unlikely stability and poise, that truly puts you in the seat of a car that, in its short life won a dozen Touring Car championships across ...