The enthusiast demographic has been diverging for a long time. The motorsports/driving enthusiasts have been buying used cars and avoiding new cars, so auto makers aren't really catering to them. As new cars get more expensive, it becomes harder to justify tracking them.

Even the AWD boost buggy demographic is dominated by the cars and coffee type audience. Just look at how long Subaru got away with having an ancient powertrain in the STI yet people ate it up.

Supra is a nice exception to this trend. They took an expensive platform, made some light adjustments, and sold it at a much more affordable price. It's nice that we still have someone doing this.

 

Made some tuning adjustments. Will be logging this extensively at the track this weekend. It rips on the street that's for sure.

 

I haven’t driven one myself so idk… but there are a couple of YouTubers and journalists whose opinion hold a lot of water for me. Chris Harris and Misha (Nurburgring guy) and both of them love the new M3 and its handling dynamics. Both say it’s better than the outgoing model… if it’s a car you’re considering might be worth digging up the vids by those 2.

the other thing worth considering about why you haven’t seen a lot of them is that BMW just doesn’t send many of them over here (US). I buddy of mine has been in line to get one for like 6 months, was supposed to be a year. They just called him and told him it’s gonna be a year and a half now. And this is a guy that’s been in car sales for 15+ years and has friends that work there, they’re not just pushing him back to let other people in front of him

edit: it’s also a 100k car now… 100k cars get treated a bit differently than 60k cars when it comes to modding and tracking them. More expensive parts, smaller pool of people willing to mod means even more expensive parts

 

Yea i think theyve pushed up into Aston martin / Porsche pricing bracket but do they offer the same level of vehicle? possibly when you actually look into them. although i think they made it difficult with the front grill. although theres a few around here locally now and the more i see them on the street the more i think they look great especially in the right colour like the green or black. I cant speak for the performance comparism but the numbers seem to stack up. Guess they have repositioned their brand a little bit, They seem popular here at least. a friend bought an M2 and he thinks its amazing

 

Tell that to the 20+ Porsches I see every event over here. That said, Lime Rock is in Connecticut..

I see a good amount of G Series M3/4 here on the East Coast. They aren't $100k. Maybe with crazy dealer markups some suckers buy them for that much. M3 Sedan starts at $76k and go up to $86k for the M3 Comp xDrive. A family member just bought a M3 comp for $84k

This is why I stated I think they are betting on the M2 to attract more buyers. It's a M4 that was shortened and is much cheaper at $62k which is not that far from a Supra. Too bad that the current BMW designers design with their feet.

 

Whilst blindfolded and spun in circles. The new M2 is one of the ugliest sports cars on the market. Such a let down after how good the previous generation and the 1M were.

 

I was assuming adding some optional equipment... that climbs to 100k pretty quick

 

Had fun with a C8 on Hoosiers while giving a fellow Supra owner a ride along. This is with my "low power" map as the higher power map I posted above was pulling too much timing.

 

No new Evo owners buying Supras? Come to the darkside. We have fast track cars.

 

Would love to, but mark-ups and availability suck.

Seems like a pattern with enthusiast cars - made for magazines to promote the brand, but a PITA to find.

 

Makes me glad I got mine when I did. $7k off MSRP and only 2 weeks to get. Those days seem to be long gone.

 

Went to Lime Rock two days in a row the other weekend. First day was awesome and it was a 4 hour hot open track.

Second day was another organizer who we hadn't run with before and it was absolute crap. I left early because it was so bad.

Cars kept going off left, right, and right in front of me... like this guy on our outlap... dude found a mound after going off track and launched into the tire wall backwards. :-/


Then there was this guy who almost made it back into the hot lane... :-X

 

He probably thought he had mechanical damage turned off... Sad he had to back it into the tire wall while to find out.

 

Jeez the second one was decent.

Can confirm i have made it into the pit lane having a crash on iracing haha. Its not a very safe pit in that regard.

 

What the heck happened to that Camaro in the first video?