[tony20009]

For some reason my quote feature isn't working so:

Kamerai said:
It's not as much about it being diluted as value
I pay a lot more for an M3 than a 335, because a lot of parts are custom made of the M3
The difference right now is about $15,000
If most of those parts are available on the future 335
Why should I pay the premium?

My response:

I may be missing something, but to me this isn't a new business model.

You pay the premium because at the time you bought it, those parts weren't available except on the M3. It's the price one pays to be an early adopter and a buyer of something exclusive. And because when BMW initially implement said parts and technologies on the M3, they are exclusive to the M3, and with it's lower production volumes, more expensive. If and when BMW deploy them in the 335, it reduces the cost of making that 335 because those parts have been vetted by M3 owners and it shouldn't take that much more, if any, additional capital investment to expand the scope of implementing those parts/technologies in the higher volume, but in many ways similar, vehicles. When 335 buyers get them they are no longer exclusive, but then at that point, there'll be a new M3 with its own exclusive, new "stuff." Nobody, I suspect, promised you your car's "stuff" would remain forever exclusive.

Kamerai's comment continues:

...I could just as easily get the entry level 335m or m335 or whatever the heck they decide to call it, and since it's turbocharged, like the M3
Give it a nice tune, and be up there with the M3 for a lot less money

My reply:
Though I've never done it before, my sense it that it's really not "just as easy" to buy such and such car and give it a nice tune as it is to just buy a car the way it's offered from BMW. Even so, what you suggested sounds like a reasonable compromise. Why didn't you do that instead? Whatever your answer it, preface it with, "On the day I bought my car, ...." Whatever that reason is, it's at least partly why you willingly paid the M3 premium rather than do exactly as you suggested above.


Kamerai's comment continues:

I like the M, but I'm no fool for it
I won't just be paying the M tax when I can get 95% of the performance for a lot less money

My reply:
I can understand that. Many of us have come to that same conclusion. 95% of the performance for less than 95% of the cost is a fairly compelling value proposition to my way of thinking. Enough so that I wouldn't buy an M3, but I have other reasons, notwithstanding that value proposition, for not wanting an M3.

Kamerai's comment continues:

Notice how porsche always limits what the boxster/cayman can do
So as not to step on the toes of the 911
Otherwise why would I pay $100,000 for a 911, when I can get similar performance in a 50,000 boxster?

My reply:

??? I'm no Porsche expert, but isn't that exactly what one gets when one buys a Boxter or Cayman? Performance and styling "similar" to that of a 911? Granted, I would say the Cayman is more similar to a 911 than is a Boxter, at least visually.

I have only once driven a Cayman, but at that time, it felt and looked somewhat like, but not identical to, a 911. I was able to sense and see similarities and differences. Is that not what similar is? Does not the current 335 (we'll say coupe as the F30 sedan has just come out) feel like and look to some extent like an M3 coupe, yet not feel and look identical to an M3? I guess I'm not sure where you were going with the last part of your post.

That said, I think a better basis of comparison within Porsche's offerings, just to keep the degrees of difference within a given model line on par, would be a basic 911 vs one of those beefed up variations of the 911. Even so, aside from the fact that you just don't like that BMW opt to use formerly M3-only "stuff" in one or more upcoming lesser models, I don't see much basis for arguing that their doing so is a bad thing for anybody. Granted, I respect that you have the opinion you do; I just don't see the merit in your argument for it.

FWIW, I could attempt to make the same case regarding my PC (purchased two years ago), but I would have no more a meritorious case than I think you do, or don't have as it were. The day I bought it, it was the fastest, most bad-ass thing Falcon Northwest offered: the fastest chips, four of the fastest video cards one could buy, the fastest SSDs in a RAID 0 configuration, and a pair of the 2 GB hard drives. I expect in the not too distant future one can get all those parts on a $400 value PC. That's just the way it works, and that's OK. At the time I bought it, I paid the premium because I wanted the best, fastest, most powerful thing I could buy ON THAT DAY. I spent around $8500 on it when a typical, very good gaming PC could be had ( from Falcon or other vendors) for about half to two-thirds that price.

(And no, I don't let my kids so much as walk into the room that PC is in.)