As I drove to see friends in a nearby village the other morning, all seemed to be well. The sky was blue, snowdrops were beginning to emerge and there was a definite sense that spring was just around the corner. And yet something was troubling me. Coming down a hill, I placed my foot lightly on the brake pedal and there was a sort of shooshing sound, followed by the slow-motion staccato of the antilock braking system fighting a losing battle with a surface that plainly had the characteristics of wet soap in a puddle of Fairy Liquid. In short, I was driving on black ice.
But – and I’m sorry for the anticlimax here – I was OK. I steered carefully to the side of the road, where there was a grass verge so that two of the tyres would have some kind of adhesion. And then, after stopping and taking stock, I continued with my journey at approximately 2km/h.
No one else was doing the same thing. At the bottom of the hill there was a Peugeot, all airbags and broken headlamps, buried in a tree, and a few hundred yards further on a respectable, fully cardiganed lady standing at the side of the road, flapping frantically to alert me to the fact that, round the corner, she’d had a head-on with someone in a Vauxhall. I started to wonder, half a mile later, as I passed an upside-down van in a field, that maybe we have lost the ability to drive on ice. All these crashes had happened because people today simply don’t know what it’s like to drive a car when it’s below freezing out there. To them black ice is as alien as an actual alien. This is a plus point for global warming, an upside, and it’s a plus point for BMW too. It’ll certainly get them out of a hole. Well, a ditch at any rate.
The M4 Competition I was driving had been fitted with optional four-wheel drive. Which may be of some use if you live in Helsinki but when you’re going downhill
on sheet ice, you might as well rely on the local ley lines for your health and safety. Frankly, I’d spend the extra on an old pick-up truck and use that on the one day a decade when it snows. Because, let’s face it, this is an M4. It should be rear drive only.
It looks brilliant, too
I’m not going to mess about here. This is a sensational car. There are purists, I know, who lament the passing of the old V8, but the twin turbo straight six we get now is so smooth and so sonorous and, let’s be honest, it churns out 375kW, which is always going to be enough. I’d go further and say that any more renders a car too scary to be much fun most of the time. With 375kW of power you can put your foot down for long periods of time, in most of the gears, and shriek with joy, not terror. It’s like you’re being pulled around on God’s apron strings. It’s so communicative, so perfectly judged and so exciting. As exciting as the early M cars? No. Of course not. Nothing is that exciting any more, but this new breed manages to be 90 per cent as good while being 10,000 times more refined.
That’s this car’s party piece, really. Its ability to be fast and thrilling when you’re in the mood but calm and dignified when you’re not. Even in nutter bastard, mode it’s never unduly uncomfortable or noisy. We see this thinking with the gearbox too, which is a full torque converter auto, not one of those dual clutch jobs that everyone thought were going to be the future. Partly this is because full autos are so light now. But mostly because they’re much cheaper to make.
Inside you get just about the best seats ever to envelop my nether regions and a dash that even I could operate. Which is why I was able to work out that you can choose two perfect set-ups – one for fast driving and one for going home after work – and then you can access either by simply pressing a red button on the steering wheel. Another feature I found was a tool that gives you marks for the quality and duration of your “drifts”. We live in a YouTube era now and this is the sort of thing that matters. It’s the future.
The rest of us? Well, the M4 is so easy to get in and out of, the back seats are genuinely useable and the boot’s big too. The price isn’t bad either. I am struggling to think of something I didn’t like on this car. Maybe the styling’s a bit off. It’s like the designer got embarrassed about the showiness of the front and became a bit timid when doing the back. But this is only a small thing and you don’t even notice it if you go for the convertible. Which is what I’d do.
It’s possible this will be the last M4 before electric drive takes over so I’m glad to see it going out in such style. Not with an especially large bang – although there may be a lightweight CSL version in the wings – but with a satisfied, arms folded, post Sunday lunch sense of a job really well done.
BMW M4 Competition xDrive Coupe
Engine:
3.0-litre, six-cylinder twin turbo (375kW/650Nm). Average fuel 10.2 litres
Power
503bhp @ 6250rpm/510hp @ 6250rpm
Torque
479 lb ft @ 2750rpm/650 Nm @ 2750 rpm
Acceleration
0-100km/h: 3.5 seconds
Top speed
155mph/250km/h
Fuel consumption
28mpg/10.09L/100km
Weight
1,725kg
Price
£75,500/Approx AUD$131,000
Rating
5 Stars ★★★★★
