HOWLING BIMMER; Dinan has been building them for 27 years.(Dinan Engineering Inc has designed new generation Dinan S3-R M3 car)

Byline: MARK VAUGHN

This was not your typical automotive product introduction. Oh man, no. Sure, we were riding in the new car with the CEO of the company and yes, the vp of marketing was... nearby. But at that very moment we were going 185 mph on a very narrow tree- and cow-lined country road in a car driven by Dinan chief Steve Dinan, and right there in front of us-only a bumper or so away-was marketing vp Herb Shattuck on his personal Aprilia Mille R 1000-cc V-Twin, and we were passing him, passing him, when Dinan spoke.

"We've been discussing this for about a year and a half, what's faster, a car or a bike,'' he said, as if he were on the way to Home Depot for some wing nuts and not about to turn his vp into road pizza.

Turns out it's a car (fire up your hate mail, bikers). But not just any car, this particular one was the Dinan S3-R M3, a 462-hp fully tuned howler that sells for more than $100,000. We had been driving it earlier, though going simply fast (not former World Challenge-racer fast), and found it did everything it was supposed to do just fine, like an M3 but more so in every area of performance: better handling, way faster, but not harsh and jarring like a crazed race car.

Yes, $100 grand is a lot more than a stock M3, which retails for about half that, leading to the question: Is a Dinan S3-R M3 worth double the sticker? Well, that depends how badly you want to catch your vp of marketing.

First there is the engine hardware: a Vortech gear-driven supercharger adding 5.5 psi of boost, air-to-air intercooler, bigger fuel injectors and much better oil cooler and radiator, as well as countless hours spent setting the optimum engine management ...