Firstly, welcome to my first post on my new blog.

I have been enjoying photographing cars since last summer and posting them on my instagram page but since the turn of the year I have wanted to expand what I am doing and experience some of the vehicles I enjoy photographing whilst getting some fresh and higher quality content as well. After approaching several car manufacturers without success, many of whom disappointingly did not even respond to my emails I got a break.

My local BMW dealer Rybrook BMW in Warwick, called me and said they have an M3 Competition Pack demonstrator that I could take for the day. Obviously, I didn’t hesitate in taking up their kind offer and set about planning what I could do with the car.

On the morning of collection, things weren’t looking fantastic on the weather front. It was throwing it down and anyone who knows anything about the M3 know’s it can be a handful in non dry conditions but with the forecast set to improve I adapted my plans and started getting to know the car at a very steady pace.

With the weather starting to improve I headed towards the Cotswolds to some good driving roads I know well. With the sunshine starting to burn away the moisture from the tarmac I was able to start exploring some of the M3’s performance potential. I’ve been fortunate to have been able to experience some high performance cars over the years but it has been some time since I have driven anything quite so rapid as the M3. With this in mind and also the fact I was driving a car not belonging to me worth an awful lot of money I never pushed the car anywhere near its limits but it was just as enjoyable driving at more mundane speeds and experiencing the odd full bore acceleration in the first three gears at least.

I chose the Cotswolds not just for the great roads but because I knew there would be opportunities to take some photographs in beautiful surroundings and it didn’t disappoint. I spent some time around Broadway tower and then Snowshill and many of the pretty villages and countryside, finding backdrops and trying to position the car to get some good shots. Thanks to the weather early in the day, the car was already filthy and covered in road salt which made the photographs more of a challenge but undeterred I carried on either side of stopping in a quiet peaceful valley to eat lunch in some now beautiful spring sunshine.

Finally, with a couple hours left with the car it was back to the driving enjoying the sweeping roads around Chipping Camden then North back into Warwickshire. I really wanted to try the car on some of the many roads I like to drive closer to home now feeling more confident with the car and how it reacted to my inputs. The car was every bit as good as I had hoped for and more rapid than I had expected. Counting down to the time we agreed to have the car back by I wanted to just keep enjoying the car but with rush hour traffic building and the light fading I made my way back towards the dealership to have the keys prised from my fingers. In the end, after a challenging first hour or two the day had been kind to us and the sun had shone throughout the afternoon and I had many pictures with potential to work with.

You can find the photographs I took on the day on my Instagram account and I want to say a huge thank you again to Rybrook BMW in Warwick for making this possible. We have more plans in the pipeline to do the same with more cars as well as some more content with Bentley and Aston Martin to come in the coming weeks. I’m also hoping the write a small more objective review on the M3 as well in the coming days.

Mat.

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