The First Automotive Easter Egg?"The October dead-tree issue of Popular Science is reporting that the new BMW M3 contains what they are calling the "first automotive easter egg" in its transmission control software. Apparently, the proper combination of commands to the electronically controlled manual transmission will cause the car to rev up to 4000rpm and drop the clutch (premitting burnout, which is normally impossible). According to the article, use of the feature more than 15 times voids the warranty in Eurpoe. Other limitations of the "acceleration-assist" feature are discussed in
this Car and Driver article. According to popsci, U.S. laws won't allow the warranty limitation, so the U.S. version of the software only revs to 1500rpm, but dealers will install the european software if you ask. The only other mention I could find on the web is
here."