BMW M6 Coupe
BMW reckons the average M6 customer will be over 45 years old, a successful professional, and even by the standards of his peers very highly paid. So we’re talking about a senior executive, perhaps the managing director of a large-sized company. And to these distinguished suited types the new BMW M6 offers “launch control”. Which is such an amusing device that I’m still laughing days later.
What is launch control? Well, you may have seen Jeremy Clarkson on telly getting some monstrously overpowered supercar off the line with clouds of white tyre smoke, engine howling at the very limit of mechanical endurance. It looks great, sounds marvellous but takes quite a lot of experience to get right. Get it wrong and the chances are you’ll do loads of expensive damage.
It’s a safe bet your average senior exec doesn’t have that kind of experience, so BMW has included software that does it all for you. Press a few buttons and then floor the accelerator (launch control won’t work unless you do) and the system dials in about 4400rpm. Then it releases the clutch and feeds in the power in such a savage way that you’d swear something will break. And it shifts up a gear a shade before the engine’s comically high 8250rpm maximum revs are reached, thereby catapulting you down the road in classic road-test-demon style, with howling tyres and billowing smoke. It’s very funny, especially when deployed from the exit lane of a Spanish toll booth (Spain is where the car was launched last week).
It’s also a clue to this new M6’s hardcore character. Here is a 6-series coupé invested with the monumental 500bhp V10 that first appeared in the M5 saloon. Only now it’s in a lighter car with a shorter wheelbase and a lower centre of gravity, and given that the M5’s performance is routinely described as “awesome” we’ll need a new superlative. Or maybe an expletive, as here is a big, comfy coupé that will reach 62mph in 4.6sec and a top speed, if it weren’t electronically limited to 155mph, of 205mph.
his V10 is an extraordinary engine. Most supercar engines will boast about how much torque they deliver low down in the rev range. Well, BMW has gone the other way with this engine, which develops its maximum torque at a very high 6100rpm. To get the best out of it, you need to rev like Schumacher, and when you do the result is colossal performance accompanied by a traditional BMW hum overlayed with a high-pitched scream reminiscent of a Formula One car. Between 5000 and 8000rpm this is one of the most inspirational engines of all time.
For those worried about all that power in the hands of mere mortals, BMW demands that you press the so-called MDrive button to access the whole 500bhp — the default setting is 400bhp. The button can also be used to select the driver’s preferred settings for suspension stiffness and gearshifting characteristics (relaxed or track-day brutal).
Couple all of this with a car that feels just about perfectly balanced on tyres that are sensationally grippy, and you’ve got a dynamic experience that stands comparison with the best on offer from the likes of Porsche and Mercedes.
The experience is, though, compromised by a gearbox that can be deeply frustrating to use. It is BMW’s SMG box, a clutch-actuated sequential-shift setup that can operate in fully automatic mode or manually with shift paddles on the steering wheel. In automatic mode, shifts are slow-witted and clumsy, so you’ll find yourself shifting manually most of the time.
