Winding Road is reporting that BMW might revert to a conventional soft-top for the upcoming M3 convertible, to allow the car to remain its performance edge. A convertible body is already a compromise, and an extra 440 pounds is likely to be too much for the discerning M division engineers. However, the solution is not as straight forward as the simple addition of a soft-top. The new M3 convertible is expected to be significantly faster than the previous version, and the new roof will have to maintain NVH levels typical of a BMW even at extremely high speeds.
An alternative option, though severely expensive, would be to retain the folding hard-top concept but replace metal with light weight carbon-fiber. The exotic compound could be used for most of the panels and the arm extensions as well.