Acceleration times and top speeds are all well and fine, but the ultimate bragging rights - for a German car, especially - is a Nurburgring lap time. And a BMW M135i has just set a blistering 8 minutes and 5 seconds around the infamous Green Hell. To put that into perspective, the 8:05 lap time makes the M135i faster than a Porsche Cayman S, or more crucially, right on time with the outgoing M3. It's also ten seconds faster than the 1 Series M Coupe which the M135i essentially replaces.

This despite having 315 hp to the 1 M Coupe's 340. Equally impressive is that the lap time was set not by a racing driver, but by Autoforum driver Pavel Janda. (UPDATE: Some readers have noted that this could be a Bridge-to-Gantry lap that cuts out the final straight and a good 10-15 seconds, so take with a grain of salt.)