BMW M2 I HONDA CIVIC TYPE R I PORSCHE 718 CAYMAN
If the petrol performance car’s days are numbered, here are three to be treasured forever. BMW’s new M2 meets the Porsche Cayman GTS and Honda’s latest Civic Type R
Giant test
THE DEFINITIVE VERDICT
Stadium-filling stargazer Professor Brian Cox loves nothing more than to latch on to some apparently straightforward idea and, drag-ging it with him, dive headfirst down a wormhole to the abstract. Throw in surrealist comedians James Acaster and Ed Gamble, of the Off Menu podcast, and you’re set for a supermassive saunter into the brain-stretchingly weird.
As the BMW M2 powers south, heading cross-country on a back-roads last hurrah (and overtaking everything in its path with impres-sive impunity) before hooking up with the A1 (where it will prove far quieter than the Porsche 718 Cayman GTS I drove up in, if a touch less fuel efficient), Gamble and Acaster are imploring Cox to use his influence to end the search for dark matter. The clue, they point out, is in the name. The stuff is evidently evil. And clearly it does not wish to be found. So leave it be.
Cox is having none of it. Dark matter, like sand, cannot wish for anything. Its elusiveness is not deliberate because dark matter lacks consciousness. It therefore also lacks the means to be evil.
Then, in that Coxian way, he warms to the idea. Perhaps sand – the less abstract substitute for dark matter in this instance – might be formed into a ‘thought engine’ with a semblance of consciousness. Then it could wish to remain undiscovered. And it could be evil.
And if we can conceive of a pile of sand having a personality then a collection of interlinked mechanical and electronic systems definit-ely can. The new BMW M2 is, by M’s own admission, a modified 2-se-ries monocoque stuffed with a bunch of M3/M4 parts and systems. Of course, this is not a new page in the M playbook – the previous M2 used a similar recipe, as did the lauded and influential 1M Coupe.
To be clear, adopting a bunch of M3/M4 components a fine idea. In their various guises these cars have been busy winning nearly as many CAR Giant Tests as the Tesla Model 3. But for the latest M2 to begin to carve out its place in the world, not to mention the right to stand among the greats, requires that its pile of sand be imbued with a personality all its own. Because on paper the new M2 looks an aw-ful lot like an M4 lite.
It is 1887mm wide, weighs 1775kg with the six-speed manual gear-box (1800kg with the auto) and runs 0-62mph in 4.3 seconds (4.1 sec-onds for the auto). The 503bhp M4 is the same width, the same weight (there is no manual M4 in the UK), sits on the same Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres and runs 0-62mph in 3.9sec thanks to the same engine in a higher state of tune. Similar sand.
The M2 pass
