Few performance cars are held in as high regard as the BMW M3.

Every time a new one is launched, the automotive world goes into a frenzy but in the years and decades following, do M3s lose their magic?

After watching this latest video from Car Throttle, it certainly doesn’t seem so as a 20-year-old E36-generation M3 hits an impressive 255 km/h (159 mph) on the German Autobahn, a figure above the model’s claimed 155 mph (249 km/h) top speed when it was near.

In a previous episode of the publication’s E36 M3 series, it was confirmed that the car, affectionately known as ‘Collin’, had lost 30 hp, meaning its 3.2-liter straight-six engine now delivers around 290 hp.

Despite that, a GPS-verified speed of almost 160 mph (257 km/h) was clocked in one of three high speed runs and remarkably, the car didn’t look to be falling apart. In fact, it seems quite stable at speed perhaps proving that when it comes to engineering, the Germans really do know best.

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