Tuesday 4th February 2014

Spec the PH BMW M4 - Final update

There are just two days left to make your choices on the PH M4; this is the spec at present

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With the competition closing on Thursday, this week is your last chance to influence the spec of the PistonHeads BMW M4. With that in mind, here's how the car looks at present.

It's coming with all of these for now!

BMW Individual Tanzanite Blue remains the most popular colour choice, and the interior is still a combination of BMW Individual Black leather with Sakhir Orange stitching and Carbon-fibre trim. Certainly distinctive! With two thirds of you opting for the M Carbon ceramic brake option as well, that looks guaranteed for the PH car.

Wheel choice is far harder to call. Currently the Jet Black option is just ahead with 51.5 per cent of the vote. So if your preference is for silver wheels, go to the site now!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, all of the optional extras have been selected so far. If more than 50 per cent of you chose a particular option, it will make the final car. So far the lowest take-up for an option has been 63.6 per cent for the stainless steel pedal covers with stuff like the Carbon-fibre splitter (81.5 per cent), Alcantara steering wheel (86.1 per cent) and Carbon-fibre spoiler (75.1 per cent) proving very popular. Again, they look likely to make the car.

The choice of exhaust is much closer; currently it's the Titanium finisher to the sports exhaust that's proved most popular with 58.6 per cent of the vote. If the Carbon-fibre tip is your preference, there are a couple of days left to vote. It would go nicely with the Carbon-fibre rear diffuser that 80 per cent of you want....

Start building our M4 here

[cerb4.5lee]

Not really a black wheel fan but the exterior is what I went with.

[is1]

Can people please stop opting for black wheels.
How about Sakhir orange with black interior (Sakhir stitching), carbon fibre garnish interior and exterior and silver wheels. Done.

[LukeR94]

no, no no, THE BLUE FFS

[Funk]

It's gonna look minging in blue with orange stitching. I'd have made it so you can only chose the colour stitching that matches the exterior. Very strange 'competition' really.

[MaximumJed]

is1 said:

How about Sakhir orange with black interior (Sakhir stitching), carbon fibre garnish interior and exterior and silver wheels. Done.

This is what I went for - but with the black wheels!

[Quickmoose]

What IS it with black wheels??!!! feckin' gash fowl fad...

[anonymous-user]

I'm pretty sure that everyone on PH is a hypocrite now. If a car is covered in carbon fibre bits in a news story, 80% of the comments will say the car has crashed backwards through a Halfords and it looks like st.

But when given the choice, 80% of people will cover a car in carbon.

For the record, I opted for no carbon bits at all, because it's horrible.

[Monty Python]

So basically what this article has done is given those who haven't entered the spec to choose....

[juicy sushi]

I haven't submitted because I don't like the options. I'd like a Dakar Yellow M3 please. As long as it has the HUD then I don't need any options.

[evenflow]

Monty Python said:

So basically what this article has done is given those who haven't entered the spec to choose....

Yeah, that's what I thought too.
I don't really understand the whole point of this?

[sanctum]

Black with black wheels and black trim... how imaginative. I suppose it has black controls, illuminated by little black lights inside too.

[Monty Python]

sanctum said:

Black with black wheels and black trim... how imaginative. I suppose it has black controls, illuminated by little black lights inside too.

and there's a button that's written in black on a black background that lights up black to let you know you've pressed it.

[LeeCapri]

I'd hazard a guess (of course I could be wrong) that most of the people that have participated in this pointless exercise and ticked ALL the boxes for the naff add-ons, and opted for bizarre colour combo's are probably not the sort of people that can either afford, or will actually be choosing to purchase a £70K+ M4 (with all of those individual options) in the near future.
As a current M3 owner, and prospective M4 buyer I like to think we have a bit more taste. That could also be interpreted as "we're mostly boring" too!

[aspirated]

I think the orange stitching will contrast nicely against the black leather and navy exterior.

[Dave Hedgehog]

apart from the orange stitching its pretty much what i spec'd

[Rosco722]

The color combo of blue body, black alloys and gold calipers.... well i'm no style guru but I think it's gonna look a bit poo!

[Roma101]

I seem to recall a lot of people slating the M Performance "upgrades" for the regular 3 series when they came out, including the carbon fibre body trims. Funny that such options appear very popular now.

[mike-r]

This serves as a good evidence for my 'Design by Committee is always terrible' thesis.

[anonymous-user]

LeeCapri said:

I'd hazard a guess (of course I could be wrong) that most of the people that have participated in this pointless exercise and ticked ALL the boxes for the naff add-ons, and opted for bizarre colour combo's are probably not the sort of people that can either afford, or will actually be choosing to purchase a £70K+ M4 (with all of those individual options) in the near future.
As a current M3 owner, and prospective M4 buyer I like to think we have a bit more taste. That could also be interpreted as "we're mostly boring" too!

Err yeah, most people can't afford a £70k car. That doesn't mean they're any less entitled to participate. That's why PH invited anyone who reads PH it in!

Maybe they should have only asked people who were going to buy an M4. First of course, they would need to check their bank accounts to make sure they weren't asking someone who couldn't afford an M4, in case they ruin the whole thing with their poor taste.



That said, the spec does sound pretty terrible. Are PH really going to honour this one?

[Ryvita]

The inherrent problem with this is that it's design by percentage. And yes I fear it's going to end up hideous.

Certain options go well with certain options. But by yes/no-ing things based purely on percentage you can end up with some hideous combinations. Imagine if everyone got to pick the colour by adding a little bit of their choice of paint to a tin... it would be guaranteed to end up st brown.

Perhaps a more sensible option would be to pick the first, biggest option, the body colour for example, then move on to the interior, assessing the percentage amongst people who picked that body colour, then on to the wheels, again, selecting from the people who agree with the first two choices. You'd have fewer and fewer people contributing to the later decisions, but the end result should at least be a consistent picture, and not a horrible hodge-podge.