There's something about the the provenance of a BMW that doesn't quite add up. Bavaria, Germany's largest Land, is a picturesque region of rolling meadows, woodlands, timber-built houses and cuckoo clocks. A third of it is forested, despite a vigorous lumber-jacking industry that has an insatiable appetite for beer and obscene sausages. Many Bavarians genuinely wear leather trousers, braces and hats with feathers, and of a weekend go a-wandering in the lush pastures, their knapsacks on their backs - Yodel-ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. I looked in a Bavarian music shop, and while an English one might be full of drums, electric guitars and the like, this was stocked entirely with brass instruments of the oompah family. In the midst of this rustic idyll is BMW, beacon of German high-tech supremacy.

Mercedes-Benz, being based in an industrial heartland, ought to have the advantage, yet I believe BMW's new three-litre straight-six is more exciting than Benz's 3.2-litre V6. 'Nothing can change the laws of physics,' say BMW's felt-hatted boffins in support of their adherence to the in-line philosophy. 'Total absence of free-mass forces and momenta thanks to perfect inner balance...' Yes, thanks, that's enough.

But they may have a point. The new engine, which replaces the 2.8-litre and which I have been experiencing in the 3-Series Coupe, is not quite as sweet as the peerless 2.3, but it's pretty tasty all the same. What's more, the annoying tendency of the lesser engine to hang on to its revs when you lift off has been banished, so throttle response is now as good on the way down as on the way up. Gearchange remains a little cussed and makes the 330Ci tricky to drive smoothly, especially at low speed, but at least the engine can now keep pace with the transmission. It will also be available in the 3-Series saloon, Touring, convertible and, eventually, the Z3 roadster.

Compared with the old and weedy 2.8-litre, the new three-litre has 231bhp versus 193 and torque is raised, mainly by double-VANOS (for Variable Nockenwellen-Spreizung, dummkopf), to 221lb ft at 3,500rpm, with 90 per cent of that available from 1,500rpm. In fact, the 330 will pull cleanly from little over 1,000 revs even in top.

The enthusiastic driver, however, will want to drop down a couple of cogs and revel in the unit's superb (and deceptive) delivery and invigorating exhaust note. When working hard, that VANOS variable valve timing system can faintly be discerned in operation, imbuing in the driver a warm feeling of being in command of something highly tech-nically advanced and altogether very German - if not especially Bavarian.

I have one minor quibble with the 330 coupe, which is an excess of wind noise from around the mirrors and A-pillars at speeds in excess of 100mph (where traffic regulations and conditions allow - which they did). I also have a more serious beef, which is that the car, rather like your correspondent, seems a little over-tyred. Being as it is a sort of junior M3, the coupe gets 225/45 ZR17 rubber - just about fat and low-profile enough to begin to spoil the ride and dull the steering, which is perfectly precise but a touch remote for my liking.

The solution, I will tell my uncomprehending Bayerische friends for free, is to fit slightly narrower boots and trade some outright capability for improved civility at real-world speeds.

Other than that, the 330Ci is bloody nice - muscular, tractable, stylish, well-made, very satisfying to cruise in or punt hard and available from July at the same price as the outgoing 2.8. All this from the region that gave you the German beer-drinking song.

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