2019 BMW M2 Competition Performance Drive Review | How Fast is the Baby M4?

Every once in a while, you get a car that makes a lot of sense. A car that feels engaged, unrelenting, brilliant. Something that makes you want to take the long way home. In that car is a 2019 BMW m2 competition. Now, the big difference between this car and the outgoing model is that this car has the same engine from its big brother, the M4. Now, even though it's detuned a little bit, it still makes 405 brake horsepower and 406 pound feet of torque. That's 40 more horsepower than the N55 version of this car. There is one downside, though. The S55 engine in this car does make it weigh about 150 pounds more than the old M2. Now, adding power does help, but adding weight is not an ingredient that you want in this recipe. It's almost as heavy as a Mustang. Let's talk about the good part. Just like its big brother, the M3 or the M4, you can throw in an intake exhaust, tune, and make around 500 wheel horsepower just like that. And if you're really ballsy, you can go big turbo E85 and easily make over 600 wheel horsepower. And then you can go supercar hunting. From a styling standpoint, I dig it. It's cute, kind of like a squished baby M4, but it still retains that masculinity. If you Google World's Strongest Kid, you'll know what I'm talking about. I'm not a fan of these wheels, though. My Z06 came with the same style and I took them off immediately. I think the original 10 spoke design was much better. Those were simple, elegant. These just feel a little bit too busy. But I do love this color. Long beach blue. I always go for gray, but this color here is quintessential BMW. It's kind of like how Verde Ithaca screams Lamborghini. Anyway, you've probably heard enough of me babbling. Let's just go find out how fast this thing is now. Okay, so manual mode, sport plus everything, and second gear. Let's see what this thing can do. All right, let's do it from here. And 30 miles per hour. Not bad. All right, Let's go full automatic now. So this seven speed dual clutch gearbox weighs 50 pounds more than its manual counterpart. But the speed of those shifts easily outweigh the extra carry on bag. It's nice because you can also adjust the firmness of the gear changes. But before we go back to the board, let's talk about how it handles. Now, even though it practically weighs the same as the M4. The wheelbase is shorter by about 5 inches. It may not seem like much, but what that does is allow you to take a tighter line to a corner than a physically line longer car. The driving dynamic is also greatly enhanced by that shorter chassis. And honestly, the handling is pretty sublime. Even my wife said it felt more planted than our Abarth 124, which I thought was a street legal go kart. I really enjoyed the feedback this car gives you when you put all the settings in Sport. Plus, it just communicates your every move through the steering wheel to the road. And when you throttle through a corner, oversteer is inevitable, but it's also so manageable in this car. I've always felt that that was BMW strong suit. There's not a lot of body roll either. The suspension is stiff, very similar to the TT rs. And sometimes that can be the trade off for great handling. I wouldn't want to daily this thing, but I'm also not buying this car to be pampered. It has a different purpose for me. The seats themselves are nice, especially for track work. They hold you in snug. But it does get a bit uncomfortable if you're going for longer drives. After an hour and a half of casual cruising, I needed to get out. But after a quick stretch, I wanted to get right back in. Okay, let's go find out how quick it did. If you've been following this channel, you may have noticed that this fast list has been getting pretty crowded. So what I did was I took all the modified cars and I put them on this thing called the fan wall. I'll probably be rolling that out sometime next month. But for now, this is just gonna be factory stock cars. Hopefully that'll last me until I can figure out some sort of graphical solution for all this. Anyway, where does 405 brake horsepower and a curb weight of 3,600 pounds get you? Well, the 2019 BMW M2 competition did 40 to 1 in 6.63 seconds. And by some act of God, I was able to get a 61:30 time in 11.97 seconds. That's not bad. Now, if you're wondering, this was achieved by shifting the paddles manually, full auto ended up being something like 6.8 and 12.6 seconds respectively. Which I find bizarre because you think the computer knows better than I do. But I'm really curious how a stock TT RS or RS3 would stack up against this M2. Either way, it's still faster than the 2018 Mustang GT with 460 horsepower, but it is slower than the Tesla Model 3 Performance, which is a little bit disappointing. But I am willing to bet that the M2 can outrun the Tesla in a 61:30 run. Not too shabby for a baby M4. No, that's all fine and dandy, but can it have fun? Yes, But having balance, now that's a different story. This thing's got balance. It's not perfect like my Z06 with 50 50, but it is pretty darn close at 48, 52. 48 in the rear and 52 in the. Oh, this thing's addictive. I like this car, there's no doubt about it. It's good looking, got stance and has a ton of upgrade potential. When you compare it to its competitors, you get a car that offers tremendous value. It's cheaper than the 718 Cayman, it handles better than the C63 and looks more masculine than the TT RS. At least in my opinion. But the BMW's exhaust note has to be the weakest of the bunch. It just sounds hollow. The whole rear wheel drive thing is a double edged sword. On one hand you can have loads of fun and on the other traction becomes a problem once you start tuning the car. I already touched on the comfort in the seats, but the rest of the inside feels pretty bland to me. I was never a fan of BMW in this department. The dashboard feels antiquated even though they have this quasi digital thing going on. Just not as driver centric as the Audi TT rs. The good news is that the back seats are real. You don't need to skip leg day to use them. Plus I do like the shifter and paddles, good engagement and nice build. The beefy steering wheel is great too, but the overall interior needs work. I'm willing to accept it for what this car can deliver though. A raw driving experience that M cars haven't seen in over a decade. I've owned a few BMWs already and I always planned on jumping ship to Audi or Mercedes. But this BMW M2 competition, it makes me reconsider that. I mean it makes no sense for me. Like I have no use for a small two door coupe with I mean sort of usable back seats. They're more usable than the Audi ttrs. But I mean I have, I have no use for this car. Like it doesn't make sense for me. But I still want to buy one. I think I need to buy one.