If this is what was holding you back, head down to the dealer right now. Cars.com reports you can indeed fit a Peg Perego car seat in the rear of a 2009 BMW M3.
[Note: reminds me of a friend who bought himself an M3 right out of business school in 1995, then promptly set to working so much, the thing barely ever left the garage. A couple of years ago, when it still had less than 30,000 miles on it, he said he was thinking what an awesome car it'd make for his son's 16th birthday present.
Then last summer he traded it in on a Mercedes E63. I mean, by 2017, kids'll be riding around in hydrogen-cell jet packs, right?
2009 BMW M3: Daddy Driven [blogs.cars.com via david]
I've actually fit both one infant and one toddler into a Mini Cooper--complete with chitlens. It's hard to tell from that picture, but in the Mini the back of the bucket seat has a kind of cutout for a backseat passenger's knees that goes up far enough to easily accommodate an infant seat.
[the cars.com guy notes that the M3 seats are actually thicker, meaning less leg room in the back, than the regular 3-series. -ed.]
Why would your friend put in 16 years of effort raising a child, then kill the kid by giving him a BMW M3 at 16? (or 26 for that matter...)
[obviously, he didn't. -ed.]
Also, does the M3 have center-seat specific LATCH anchors, or is the reviewer using the inboard LATCH anchors of the left and right seats?
I am pretty sure borrowing LATCH anchors from other seats is bad -- at least, it is forbidden in my Subaru's manual.
My Subaru's manual says the same thing (perhaps obviously), although I'm not convinced that it is actually bad. The spread between the two inboard anchors on my Forester is only an inch or so wider than the proper spread, and I can get a really snug fit there with my Roundabout.
Generally speaking, isn't the center seat safer than the outboard seats?
Interesting question on the center seat LATCH issue. One of the local VW dealers offers a free safety seat check, and we took our A4 down there to have them look at it. He told us that it was perfectly fine to use the inboard anchors for a center-mounted seat, and since the E90 BMW's anchors are similarly-spaced, that's what we've been doing in our BMW, too. The seat is rock-solid in that configuration.
If I am doing something I am not supposed to, though, I'd like to stop.
"Then last summer he traded it in on a Mercedes E63."
Right, the M3 is out of the picture, but let's see if he has the will power to keep the keys to the cars with AMG badges out of Junior's hands...
I agree that the LATCH thing seems a little paranoid. The spacing isn't that different.
Anyways, the center-is-safer thing goes out the window once you have two kids anyways. Until Phil and Ted's designs a car seat, that is.
[lol, sign me up for a double decker car seat. An e63 is so obviously a parental car, i think it won't be a problem. and since you asked about it yesterday, i may have remembered the story wrong; the m3 may have been the off-to-colleg car -ed.]
Hey guys. I'm the dad reviewer from Cars.com. I did use the latch from the sides, however, when I went through the safety training with my subaru I was told as long as the distance between the two latch connectors is the same it should be fine. The seat would NOT have fit on either side. Just between.
[thanks for the clarification, Dave, and for the review in the first place -ed.]