I haven’t driven my coupe in almost 3 weeks. Winter is here in Colorado, and there has been snow on or near my favorite roads the past few weeks. While I don’t plan on parking it until spring, I know my opportunities for a good drive this winter will be few and far between. Therefore, I’ve been doing quite a bit of research on how best to winterize my coupe. Here are some of the winter storage tips I’ve come across.

Last week, I came across a 2001 Estoril Blue M Coupe in Richmond Hill, ON, Canada that besides its great condition and very low mileage did not appear otherwise significant. The seller makes mention that this particular car is one of twelve pre-production S54 coupes. I had never heard of such a thing and decided to see what I could find out.

In the four short years of BMW M Coupe production, there were essentially 3 different versions produced (6 if you count right hand drive and differentiate the European S54).  The first and most common is the North American S52-engined car.  Produced in 1999 and 2000, these cars produce 240hp and 236 lb/ft of torque.  This is the same engine as found in North American versions of the 1996-1999 E36 M3.   Europeans – as they did with their version of the E36 M3 – were offered the 321hp, 258 lb/ft S50 engine.  For 2001 and 2002, both North America and Europe received the 315hp S54 engine from the 2001-2006 E46 M3.

With the arrival of the Z4 M Coupe in 2006, many people and even some auto publications have relabeled the 1999-2002 M Coupe the Z3 M Coupe.  This is not technically correct.  While based on the Z3, the name from BMW was simply “M Coupe”.  Before the M Coupe and Roadster arrived, BMW M models of the time were named according to their series.  BMW probably could have named it the MZ or MZ3, but they chose to name it simply "M".

I've been working to collect most of the video reviews of the M Coupe. They seem to be added and dropped from video services frequently, so let me know if you find any new ones or if any of the links are broken.