The following is an excerpt from “Slow Car Fast: The Millennial Mantra Changing Car Culture for Good,” an upcoming book on what it means to be a “car guy” in 2020, with a focus on the oft-misunderstood millennials. “Slow Car Fast” is available now and can be ordered at CarraraBooks.com.

For the longest time, no one knew what to make of the BMW E30 M3. Sure, it was a pretty little car. With two doors, a wide stance and big curvy hips, the E30 M3 exuded quickness. Its wedgy front end boasted quintessential ’80s coke-addled charisma (or lack thereof). That was part of the fun.

Besides, it was great to drive. Compared to the entry-level E30 3-Series, the M3 had a stiffer chassis, better suspension and more power from its four-cylinder engine. They were great for racing on the cheap. And that’s what people did: In the 1990s and 2000s it was common to find multiple E30 M3s pushing through apexes -- or brushing up against one another -- at any track day in America.

The car could take a beating. They were for hardcore track rats. Why would you want an E30 M3 if you didn’t intend to run the wheels off it? In the wake of the Great Recession, it was difficult to find an E30 M3 that hadn’t been chopped, stripped, heavily modified or altogether beat to hell.

But then a funny thing happened: People began to covet the car. In 2010 a healthy E30 M3 would run you about $15,000. In 2012 the best examples on the market drew about $25,000. Tops.

Then the market turned upside down. In 2014 a car with 69,000 miles sold for $58,000 on the online auction site Bring A Trailer. Gooding sold an ’89 M3 convertible for $77,000 and then a ’91 M3 convertible for $88,000. Convertibles! No one even likes convertibles. You can’t race them. They’re heavier and less aerodynamic. So what are you going to do with them?

The answer, it turns out, is store them in a garage and watch them appreciate.

So how did we get here? What sparked the E30 M3 craze?

The only reason the M3 was even made available to the public as a road car is that the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile, or FISA, required automakers to sell 5,000 vehicles to ­enter touring car championships for homologation purposes. So as BMW prepared to sell the E30 M3 publicly, they also readied the M3 race car.

In November of 1986, as the 1987 German touring car season loomed, executives named its drivers in the Junior BMW Motorsport program. The inaugural M3 race drivers were asked to fine-tune its development; among them was a 25-year-old Belgian, Eric van de Poele.

“It was a bit like Christmas time,” Van de Poele told me. Van de Poele was still an amateur at the time, having not yet earned a full-time seat as a professional. The opportunity to not just drive, but contribute to engineering the flagship race car of BMW’s future, was a dream come true.

Upon its debut in 1986, racing against turbocharged entries like the Ford Sierra, Volvo 240 and the arch-nemesis Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16, the M3 stormed to the top; in the first race of the DTM season, BMW took three of the top four spots. Van de Poele would go on to win the drivers’ championship. “We knew that we were not the fastest in the straight compared to the turbo engines,” he said. “But the handling and of course the reliability could offer us a big plus.”

A remarkable run of victories followed; BMW claims the car has won more than 1,500 races. If you want to make the case that the BMW E30 M3 is the greatest road-racing car of all time -- many do -- it is difficult to argue.

After his DTM title put him on the map, van de Poele was in high demand. He won Spa five times, Le Mans three times and the 12 Hours of Sebring twice. He also had short stints in Formula One. “I learned everything at BMW, and they have been the key to my career,” he said.

More than many other cars of the same era, the E30 M3 “is perhaps the very best example of this idea of ‘slow car fast,’” says Ed Kim, VP of industry analysis at AutoPacific. “One-hundred and ninety horsepower -- quick, but nothing earth-shattering on paper. The magic was in driving it; it was so much more than the sum of its parts ... despite not being a particularly super-fast car it was certainly one of the most fun and enjoyable cars of that era. For driver involvement and feeling in the experience at that time period, what could touch it? Its iconic status is absolutely deserved.”

Still, Kim adds, “It is crazy how much they are going for now.”

Maybe both can be true. Maybe the BMW E30 M3 is at once the most unlikely candidate to be lusted over by Silicon Valley mega-millionaires and yet also the most deserving of such praise. Maybe it is car culture’s hottest rising star and its most likely to show staying power. Maybe it’s the best car ever made. Maybe we still don’t know what to do with it.

As for the sudden popularity of the E30 M3, van de Poele is not surprised. Perhaps the car just needed time to bloom. When it comes to vehicles that truly changed our collective idea of how a performance car should act, the Audi Ur-Quattro was more revolutionary. The Mercedes 190E 2.3-16, with its landmark 16-valve design, came two years earlier. But the E30 M3 remains the gold standard.

“If I could, I’d be most happy to drive one every day,” van de Poele says. “The funny side is that it once was the routine. Today, a dream.”

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