The Boston Chapter BMW Car Club of America First Quarter General Meeting was held on Wednesday, February 21. Attendance at the meeting was strong, filling up the entire showroom at Foreign Motors West in Natick.

On hand to talk about the new M3, and other M-division activities was Tom Salkowsky, BMW M Brand Manager for North America. The biggest surprise of the evening turned out to be Tom's personal transportation, a pre-production E46 M3 Convertible.

Even though the new M3 convertible made its debut back in January at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, not many people expected to see one first hand. MSRP on the 333 horsepower four-seater is expected to be around $54,000.

Tom talked about the new M3, pointing out that there is virtually no difference between the European and U.S. versions. This has been a major sticking point with owners of the previous generation E36 M3, which was substantially less powerful than its Euro cousin.

A major part of the presentation focused on BMW's effort in the American LeMans racing series. As previously reported on RIBMW.com, BMW will be fielding two teams and a total of four cars this year in the GT class: the familiar BMW Team PTG, and the new works effort from BMW Motorsport.

Overall, the BMW CCA Quarterly meeting was a tremendous success in terms of turnout, and this meeting in particular was special with Tom Salkowsky's presentation and a chance to hear about BMW M direct from the source.