Black BMW M3 Convertible Rental in Los Angeles

Black on an E46 is the combination that made this shape famous — a compact, wide-hipped coupe body with a dark folding roof, riding on the polished silver M double-spoke wheels that came with the car. Nothing on the road looks like it any more, and in black the wheels are the only bright thing on it, which is exactly the effect the design was after.

With the roof down the car changes shape completely: the black hood stacks behind the seats, the beltline runs unbroken from the front wing to the tail, and it becomes one of the best-looking open cars we run. It is a canyon and coast car rather than a city one — take it up Latigo in the morning with the roof stowed, and leave the airport runs to something with a boot.

This is the M3 a generation of people learned the badge from. The E46 arrived at the start of the 2000s with a 3.2-litre straight-six that revved to eight thousand, made its power at the top rather than the bottom, and sounded like nothing built since. There is no turbocharger softening the delivery and no electronic filter on the steering — you get the road and the engine, undiluted.

As a convertible it is a different proposition from the coupe. Slightly heavier, slightly softer, and far better suited to what people actually rent a car for in Los Angeles: the roof folds away and the noise that engine makes at four thousand revs in a canyon becomes the entire point of the afternoon.

Honest hook: it is a car from the early 2000s. The interior is period, the electronics are period, and it asks more of a driver than anything modern in this fleet. That is precisely why people book it.