BMW M4 Coupe: A Two-Door That Roars

What is your idea of heaven? If you’re a trout fisherman, maybe it’s an endless fall day in British Columbia. You are standing in a silver-braided stream, your fly line rolling in perfect sine waves through the air. For a few thousand devoted sensualists, the rear-drive M4 Coupe with a six-speed represents Paradise on Pirellis.

Later this year BMW will offer the M3 and M4 Competition cars with all-wheel drive (xDrive), including rear-active differential. For now, the one in front of my house ($97,545, as tested) will do nicely.

It’s been 33 years since the first M3 hit U.S. shores, the now highly collectible E30 series. I imprinted on the next generation, the E36 series M3 Coupe, which to this day defines the sensations I crave from BMWs. I like them light and reactive, firmly sprung, with hard, close-fitting seats. A generation of heavier and horsier performance cars from Munich in this century have awed me but never sparked much desire.

The new M4 Coupe’s relative lightness (3,830 pounds) and rigidity feel like old times. What a yar little vessel this is. The front and rear structures are webbed with elaborate aluminum bracing. The M-specific double-joint spring-strut front and five-link rear suspension is flinty, summoning neck-bending levels of lateral grip you can just rather casually lay on, steering from corner to corner, in excess of 1 G.

All that plus a manual transmission. It’s fascinating to feel these primitive levers again, in hand and underfoot. BMW went to no small trouble to make this six-speed manual feel authentic: the shape of the shifter grip, the springiness of the clutch pedal return, the can’t-be-rushed shift gates, the just-so pedal positions, perfect for heel-and-toe downshifting (kids, ask your parents).

Only a handful of models still offer stick shifts, including Ford Mustang, a couple Porsches and BMWs. And for good reason: They are obsolete. Hell, they are practically steampunk. All things being equal, manual gear-swappers are slower to upshift or downshift than their computer-managed successors; they are limited in torque capacity by their single clutch disc. They are less durable (single clutch again); and they are less fuel efficient in EPA mileage testing, which helped drive them off the mass market in the 1990s.

It may surprise some that, for all the gear-stirring heroics, a manually shifted car will inevitably be a tick or two behind its robotically shifted equivalent. BMW handily illustrates this fact by offering the manual transmission only in the M3 Sedan and M4 Coupe. The M4 Competition Coupe—see what they did there?—is kitted with a torque-converter-based eight-speed automatic, equipped with column-mounted paddle shifters for playtime.

In Competition trim, the M4 gets a big bump in horsepower and torque (30 hp and 73 lb-ft), enough to shave three-tenths off the M4 Coupe’s 0-60 mph acceleration. Between the added firepower and more rapid shifting, the M4 Competition will walk away from its counterpart within a couple of laps on any road course. If trouncing your friends at the local BMW club track event is your personal god, you will want the M4 Competition.

The sole advantage and argument in favor of the M4 Coupe is that it is more fun. But what does fun even mean in this context? Is it fun making the car payment? Clutching and de-clutching a zillion times in stop-and-roll traffic? Keeping a lawyer on retainer?

I will tell you. Fun means showing off. Example: the stick shift makes it easy to pop the M4’s clutch, pin the throttle and perform lurid, ground-loop burnouts in an open lot, disappearing in a fog bank of tire smoke to the delight of neighborhood children. Fun.

Cruising: It’s actually tricky to rev up the engine of an exotic car with a dual-clutch transmission while it’s moving slowly, as you might want to if you were a total dork on a Saturday night being goaded on by your fellow dorks. With the M4, it’s as easy as the hokey-pokey: Put both feet in—the clutch and gas pedal—and shake ’em all about. The M4 Coupe has a two-stage exhaust system, which darkens and widens the exhaust note on command. There is also a button—the hospital zone switch, I suppose—with which you can temporarily shush the exhaust.

Drifting: The M4 Coupe has many traction, shifting and stability enhancements tied into the sophisticated network of chassis control, e-braking and e-steering. These well-intended driver’s aids can be gradually deactivated until—after acknowledging the driver really wants to go there—they are off. With these degrees of freedom restored, the M4 Coupe can get, and stay, pretty crossed up, sliding around, clawing sideways with the power on. And if your sliding momentum falls off, a little kick in the clutch will get it going (sideways) again. That is also fun.

As typical with M-prepared cars, the M4 Coupe has some auto-didacticism built in. One such teaching aid is the optional M Drive Professional system ($900), offering no fewer than 10 levels of traction intervention, which can be dialed in through the iDrive controller in the center console. The idea is that owners can use the system to practice drifting and power slides during their regular track days

The M4 Coupe: For connoisseurs of BMW, a river runs through it.

2021 BMW M4 Coupe

Base Price: $72,795

Price, as tested: $97,545

Powertrain: 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged inline six-cylinder, with electronically controlled waste gates and variable valve timing; six-speed manual transmission with selectable automatic rev-matching; rear-wheel drive with limited slip differential

Power/torque: 473 at 6,250 rpm/406 lb-ft of torque at 2,650-6,130 rpm.

Length/width/height/wheelbase: 189.1/81.9 (w/mirrors) 54.8/112.5 inches

Curb weight: 3,830 pounds

0 to 60 mph: 4.1 seconds

EPA fuel economy: 16/23/19 mpg

Trunk capacity: 12 cubic feet

Write to Dan Neil at [email protected]

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