I Took A Photographer With Me For A Night-Time BMW M3 London Drive: These Are The Stunning Results

These days I very rarely go for a drive unless there’s a specific thing I need to do in a specific place that requires vehicular transport. The high cost of fuel, the busy roads and a lack of free time usually cause me to leave whatever motor I have parked up outside my flat. I do like to make excuses to drive, though; rather than walk to the local newsagent when I run out of milk, I’ll often take a 10 minute drive to the supermarket instead. But there’s always a destination in mind. There’s no adventure.

It was a conversation with the man responsible for the incredible photography you see upon this page that talked me into a care free jaunt recently. I had a brand new F80 BMW M3 parked outside, and Jayson had been pestering me for a chance to take him out for a ride. Oh, and he quite fancied getting a few shots of it, too.

So late one Friday night, just as most people were getting dressed up for a night on the tiles, I jumped in the M3, cranked up the heated seats and slotted into the rush hour traffic towards London. The sat-nav’s initial prediction was 43 minutes; 150 minutes later I arrived outside London Waterloo station, where a freezing, impatient Jayson was waiting. In the preceding two and a half hours I’d had a lot of time to think, and the over-riding thought was ‘this is why I don’t bother taking the car out.’

London is the antithesis of a fun place for car guys. The endless traffic, narrow roads, infinite speed cameras and suicidal pedestrians mean I ordinarily avoid driving there whenever possible. But it’s a great place to wander around; there’s so much history on every corner you can’t help but get taken in by the spectacle.

Therefore we decided to go for a mindless wander by car, before dropping out of the bright lights and enjoying the winding countryside roads in the early hours. Jayson was keen to get shooting the clash of modernity and ancient architecture as we went, which is actually quite apt, given the fact this M3 is a modern beast with a long and rich history.

Earlier that week I’d joined up with fellow writer Matt, and our other photographer Olgun, to shoot the M3 with an Audi RS4. It was clinical brilliance versus blatant flaws, and the BMW was far from being the better car. And yet I still fell in love with it. It’s mildly terrifying to drive, especially on damp, broken British roads, but that made it all the more fun. The RS4 is the better car, but I’d find it tough to dissuade someone from an M3 purchase.

That day was mosly spent blasting along deserted country lanes, but we currently couldn’t be further from that place. The winding, narrow tree-lined tarmac of the Hertforshire coutryside has been replaced by London’s maze-like narrow streets that were laid in place hundreds of years ago and have barely changed since. Plonked in the middle of all this history is the Gherkin, an oddly-shaped building covered in glass, which looks like a spaceship preparing to blast off.

It is here that we begin shooting, and the bright lights of the office buildings lay upon the M3’s silky black paint like negligee. The wide rear track, with its beautifully flared arches are all the more obvious in that incandescent glow. We’re in fairly deserted back streets, but that doesn’t stop the occasional drunken lout stopping to take photos. It’s testament to the M3’s heritage, that an almost unassuming saloon can still be the subject of the petrolhead paparazzi.

It really is a gorgeous bit of kit, this BMW. From its long and purposeful snout, to the aggressive rear haunches, there can be no doubts that it means business. There are subtle touches, too. The interior isn’t the greatest thing in the world, but when you unlock the car the ‘M’ badges in the seats glow; here, in the darkness, that kind of cheesy street theatre brings a smile to my face.

After an enthusiastic builder ruins one of Jayson’s long exposure shots with his iPhone flash, and yet another white van man gives us grief for blocking his loading bay, we decide we’ve overstayed our welcome and move on. This wonderful city has so many nooks and crannies to explore; the one-car wide lanes and stone buildings make enthusiastic first gear blasts sound all the more sweet. The endless array of tunnels burrowing beneath the Thames and high rise buildings require a windows down, heavy right foot kind of attitude - booming straight-six echoes are your reward.

It’s well past midnight now, and the streets surrounding the financial district are deserted. The nine-to-five bankers have ditched their laptops for pint glasses in the trendier parts of town. Where others seek escape, we sense empty roads, and the constant stop/start progress between red traffic lights mean we never gain too much speed, however regular hard starts never get old with a 425bhp straight-six at our disposal.

Jayson’s happy he’s got all the shots he needs, and my eyes are getting heavy. I think it’s time to head home, but it would be rude not to give our happy snapper a taste of life on the edge - and that’s not hard to achieve in the M3. With the London skyline a distant memory, the scenery becomes greener and the roads become twistier. It’s a cold night, which means traction could be an issue, and I use the mild panic this knowledge induces as the antidote to my wooziness.

Hard on the throttle, the traction control gets a bit edgy and just about contains wheelspin with nothing more than a shimmy from the rear. This piece of road is a joy, with just the right mixture of tight bends and sweeping curves really testing my mental state. The only thing louder than the sweet exhaust note is Jayson’s incessant giggling to my left. No photos now, just get lost in the moment.

Our cruise in the vague direction of Jayson’s house has yielded some great driving roads, but as 4am appears in the instrument binnacle I chuck his address in the sat-nav, switch the settings to ‘comfort’ and enjoy the ride. After kicking him out it’s a brief blast along the M25 to my house, and the M3 proves itself to be just as capable of high speed relaxation as a standard 3-series.

It’s nearly 5am before I crawl into bed, probably about the same time the alcohol-infused revellers we bumped into earlier crashed into the pillow. I’m still buzzing, and I won’t wake up with a hangover. This is how petrolheads do Friday nights.

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