Jay Leno's love of cars often gets weird, old or just plain expensive. But despite his massive collection and connoisseur's taste, he can still appreciate the more mainstream offerings of, for instance, the 2011 BMW M3.
But wait, how is a brand-new M3 mainstream, you ask? Well, for those of us with day jobs that don't involve contract duels with Conan O'Brien, it's not. But compared to a turbine-powered one-off masterpiece, it's easy to see how Jay might take the M3 as a relatively ordinary machine.
Nonetheless, he and race driver Jason Bell give the 2011 M3 a thorough once-over before heading to the 2010 Long Beach Grand Prix to talk to BMW motorsports guru Martin Birkmann and BMW/Rahal Letterman Racing driver Bill Auberlen about the similarities and differences between the road-going and race-only versions of the M3. Along the way, we get a sense for why the "ordinary" M3 still tickles Jay's fancy.
