Dillema: Tuned M3 or Full-Option C63?
#FirstWorldProblems
Luxury problems: do you buy a car fully specced by a manufacturer or do you buy a ‘stock’ car and tune it for a comparable amount of money? A tuned BMW M3 or full-option AMG C63 S? Difficult question right? That dilemma became even more intriguing when we had the opportunity to put a full-option AMG-Mercedes C63 S press car next to a BMW M3 owned by Baan Velgen, a Dutch tuning shop in Rotterdam.
Modding cars has been a growing trend for decades and even manufacturers are entering the market at a fast pace. Which basically translates into a vast amount of options to chose from as a customer. The amount of tuning brands out there is massive, which can be overwhelming. The amount of options offered by car brands can be equally overwhelming, take BMW as an example. So what now? Well, either you dive into the endless sea of tuners or you buy a car that has been specced for you.
The dilemma translates into other parts of our lives, in its abstractness that is. Take apple pies for an example. Buy one in that hipster store down the street and you’re done in 15 minutes, friends all recognize it, but you lack the reward of ‘making’ it yourself. Making the pie yourself takes research, work and gives the risk of fucking it up, but the reward is different.
Tuned with parts from brands like Eventuri, Vorsteiner and HRE, the BMW M3 looked like something from a tuning brochure. But just like with that pie, you could see it wasn’t as perfectly baked as an OEM one. The C63’s finish was perfect, but it lacked uniqueness. Even after looking at the cars for 2 hours straight, we still couldn’t make up our minds on what choice we would make. But we did learn to appreciate tuned cars more and let's get one thing straight: voiding your warranty sure takes massive balls, more than buying a full-option car.
