M3 has four doors?

Well, just as you began scraping a deposit for the 135i, here’s another bit of history; a four door M3.

Now take a look at these first pics of the sedan sibling of the coupe that was launched locally only last week.

Naturally, like the coupe, it packs BMW’s all-new 4.0-litre V8 developing maximum output of 309 kW and 400 Nm at 3,900 rpm. It is 15 kg lighter than the last of its inline six-cylinder forebears.

The saloon gets to 100 km/h from standing in a claimed 4.9 seconds with an electronically limited top speed of 250 km/h. In the EU test cycle, it returned 12.4 litres of premium unleaded per 100 kilometres.

“Essentially the M3 sedan has all the awesome parts of the M3 coupe but with two more doors and so more practicality,” BMW Australia spokesman Toni Andreevski says.

“We’ve never had an M3 sedan before so that’s why we’re taking our time to consider it. It would be some 12 months before it arrived.”

By that time, the new sports coupe and sedan might have acquired the latest generation sequential manual gearbox. While SMG-equipped M3s comprised the great majority of E46 series sales, the new car currently has the non-option of (a rather good, actually) six-speed manual.

But a conventional clutch pedal is something of turn off in these lazy and shiftless times.

“The M3 won’t get a traditional auto,” Andreevski says.

“BMW pioneered the sequential manual and so our engineers are working on some kind of automated gearbox.”

If the four door model does make it this way, it would likely be a niche model, if BMW’s experience with the acclaimed 335i series is any guide. So far in 2007, they’ve shifted 652 of the shapely 335i coupe, making it the best selling 3 Series coupe, as opposed to 255 of the equivalent sedan.

The likely arrival late next year of Lexus's first compact sports saloon, the 5.0 litre V8 IS-F, might tip BMW's hand.