BMW M4

This new BMW M4 had a lot riding on its chunky new shoulders. Its predecessor didn’t have that point of difference that either the charismatic V8 E92 M3 Coupe had or the much-cherished E46 straight-six howler before it. The internet decided as soon as the big grille was made public that this was the worst one yet, as though mere ephemera such as styling could provide any indication at all of what lay beneath.

The G20 3 Series on which the 4 Series is based had meanwhile been hailed as the saviour of BMW’s mid-size car and rightly so. It’s an absolute belter. So why the internet commentariat made such a rash decision is anyone’s guess.

But they had a point. Not only does it have to be significantly better than the old car and its zenith, the CS, it also has to contend with the scrappy street brawler that is the M2 and its gloriously, extravagantly brilliant CS version. The team responsible for this car were under a lot of pressure. We all know what high pressure can create and it’s never mediocrity.

Pricing and Features

Unusually in these paddle-shift-centric times, you can choose between a manual M4 ($149,900) and an eight-speed automatic ($159,900). You're not just paying ten grand for two gears and one less pedal, you're also paying for the step up to Competition spec, which includes 22 more kilowatts and a whopping 100Nm of extra torque.

By the time the M3 and M4 range is rolled out with the addition of xDrive variants, there will be more mid-size M cars than sub-$20,000 hatchbacks. Okay, maybe not, but not far off...

The M4 comes properly loaded with gear. On the outside, you'll find lightweight forged alloy wheels – 19-inch at the front and 20-inch rear – wrapped in tyres that can be from Michelin, Pirelli, Continental or Yokohama. Which we will absolutely be talking about later.

Further exterior fun includes the now-trademark carbonfibre roof, blue M lettering on the brake calipers (you can have red as a no-cost option, as this car did), the brilliant Laserlight headlights, rear spoiler and front splitter.

Inside you'll find tons of leather and plenty of tech. The dash is a 12.3-inch fully digital screen, there is a configurable head-up display and a 10.25-inch touchscreen running OS7 with wireless Apple CarPlay and wireless Android Auto. Which is handy, because there is also a wireless charging pad that fits larger phones, something BMW doesn't always manage.

The front seats are heated and electrically adjustable, the 12-speaker stereo is branded with Harmon/Kardon badges and you get keyless entry and start. As well as a heap of other stuff.

The G20 3 Series on which the 4 Series is based has been hailed as the saviour of BMW’s mid-size car and rightly so.

Comfort and Space

The basic 4 Series is a comfortable car, even though getting in and out can be tricky because it's a low-slung sports coupe. You don't get a roofline like that without some sort of sacrifice. All things being equal, you'd expect the same from the M4, just with racier seats.

And racier the seats are. If only the M4 I had was fitted with the standard seats, because boy howdy were the $7500 racing buckets a mistake. Well, they were a mistake for everyone who sat in them. They are in most ways excellent. A great snug fit, but not too snug that you have to hit the steam room to be able to fit. And they're heated, which was a nice touch during that Antarctic blast we got. Carbon-backed, they looked lovely too but my goodness were they uncomfortable.

The complaints fell into two camps. First, the weird carbon bulge in the middle of your legs, where a crotch belt might sprout in a race car, bothered my wife and car-interested friend.

The other camp, into which I pitched my tent, concerned the side bolsters. If you weren't warned, you'd cleft your backside in twain sitting on them and once in, they forced my knees together, as they did with most folks.

I am willing to put a large sum of money down to say that this isn't a problem in left-hand drive cars but is here because the throttle pedal is not lined up well with the bolster in the RHD versions. My thigh now has an imprint of the bolster itself. It was so disappointing and the only real flaw in the cabin. Which is handy because they're optional and the standard seats, as I have since discovered, are as brilliant as these are terrible.

So anyway, if they fit and can get comfortable in these optional seats, front occupants will be well looked after with two cupholders, big door pockets, a shallow but long centre console bin and a wireless charging pad that takes even the larger phones with a cover on.

The rear seat is reasonably comfortable even if you're up to 180cm in height, although you won't want to be there long. My lanky son tolerated it for twenty minutes without complaint and he wasn't even distracted by his phone at the time.

The boot is a very handy 440 litres, which is not far off the 3 Series sedan's volume. The aperture is smaller, so take it easy at the Flat Pack Emporium. But it does mean that long distance touring is a perfectly reasonable endeavour because you can get your stuff in and no doubt there's a figure regarding how many golf bags you can load up with as well.

If only the M4 I had was fitted with the standard seats, because boy howdy were the $7500 racing buckets a mistake.

On the Road

A fast car can often just be about a couple of big engine numbers – in this case 375kW at 6250rpm and 650Nm between 2750rpm and 5500rpm – and that makes plenty of people happy. A Mustang R-Spec, for instance, is heavily dependent on this concept and is a barrel of laughs.

The M4 is, obviously, rather more than a cracking engine. The S58 makes its first appearance in a passenger car as opposed to an SUV (it debuted in the X3 and X4 M pairings) and is an absolute rip-snorter. Technical highlights include a forged lightweight crankshaft, closed-deck construction for strength and 3D-printed cylinder heads for whacky, uncastable shapes.

As usual, a new M car comes with something to upset the purists. This time around it's the end of the seven-speed DCT, chucked out in favour of the all-things-to-all-cars eight-speed automatic from ZF. The outrage cycle has already died down after its installation in the M5, so the xDrive versions later in the year might have to bear the most opprobrium. Because an M4 can only be rear-wheel drive etc etc.

If you look under the bonnet at the S58 you won't find the beautiful carbon fibre brace of the previous model. Instead there's a few pieces of welded and shaped aluminium 4x2 in a triangle, a small part of a package of chassis stiffening measures that continue under the floor to the rear. The new front subframe is also aluminium, while the rear is rigidly mounted to the chassis.

And the result of this stiffening is one of the first things you will notice stepping out of the old car, or even a current 4 Series. The car feels a lot more settled on its suspension and you can feel the potential of the car straight off the driveway. A very stiff chassis working with aluminium wishbones (and ball joints) at the front means the car already feels more dynamic. It's uncanny how just rolling down the street it feels more planted and inherently stable.

A stiffer chassis means less compromise, too. The engineers clearly worked hard to make the comfort end of the settings spectrum more liveable than the old car. It feels no less compliant than a 430i in Sport mode, which means it rides the bumps and won't upset your insides. What's surprising is that even if you turn up the engine, brakes and steering to their highest levels, this softest setting works beautifully on real-world twisty roads.

Of course, twisty roads are what this review is all about. The track-day launch was all very well with its high speeds, smooth tarmac and heroic tales of this car's undoubted abilities. But not everybody has access to a track and most of us have to make do with a fun bit of road.

Fundamentally, this car is properly rowdy. Like the M2 that reignited M's sense of humour (the previous generation M4 and M5 were a bit dour compared to their predecessors), the M4 is a party animal, but without the chemical assistance. The huge Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres spread themselves across the tarmac and threaten to rip it off the ground.

These tyres are not your off-the-shelf 4S but bespoke BMW M tyres, with a star on the sidewall. Compared to the standard 4S, the face of the tyre has four rather than two compounds and tighter steel belting as well as a bunch of other detail changes. Michelin and M worked on these tyres for two years and it shows.

You won't necessarily find Michelins on your M4, though. BMW worked with Pirelli, Continental and Yokohama and assure me that they're all as good as each other. I'm going to take a pot shot, though, and say the Michelins are the ones to have because they were on the M4 I drove for this review and the M3 I drove the week after.

If it matters, it won't for long. A full throttle will light up the rears, even with everything turned on. The system quickly wrestles it all under control, but it's hilarious and assures a short life before you can go and fit the tyres you want.

In M Dynamic Mode (MDM), it will cheerfully step out a few degrees to remind you that you're alive and that 650Nm will toss you into the scenery if you go without the nannies. It doesn't feel anything like its 1700-plus kilograms when you're on it, with a strong, positive turn-in and a rear end that goes with you if you want it to or tries to catch up with you if provoked.

The sheer thrust on corner exit is almost physically blinding, the rears gripping and grinding into the road surface and draining the blood to the back of your skull. I found myself involuntarily holding back from full throttle because two-thirds felt like enough. It's wild but in a controlled, sophisticated way.

Fundamentally, this car is properly rowdy. Like the M2 that reignited M's sense of humour, the M4 is a party animal, but without the chemical assistance.

With the change to the ZF eight-speed, though, we have lost a little something. The seven-speed may not have been as good as, say, Audi's in the R8, but it certainly delivered entertainment in the form of super-fast and firm shifts. The shift in the new M4 is softer and less responsive than I would like when I pull the paddle.

Too often I was bouncing off the rev-limiter madly screaming at the shift paddle I’d just pulled. It’s probably something you get used to – like the pre-emptive lift on the old single-clutch SMG – but the shift has lost that sense of mechanical precision it had before.

Is the ZF superior, though? Yes. Like the rest of the car, it’s much more friendly on the day-to-day and a large part of that is down to the shunt-less driving experience when you’re just bumbling about.

Some folks will complain that Sport Plus suspension and steering are far too heavy for the road and they are absolutely correct. Anything but blemish-free Tarmac makes the ride very hard and doesn’t really step things up the number of notches you might expect. The steering is just plain heavy, so kind of pointless. Thankfully, nobody is holding a gun to your head to use either on the road.

Ownership

Like the rest of the BMW range, the M4 is subject to the increasingly inadequate three years/unlimited-kilometre warranty that it shares (conceptually at least) with Audi.

Mercedes – including AMG – went to five years last year and even Jaguar will sling you a five-year warranty, while Lexus will do four. Complex cars like this need to have longer warranties and it’s not like you’re not paying a ton of money for it.

You can pre-pay your servicing under BMW’s BSI program. For $3810 or $762 per visit, your first five services (every 12 months/15,000km) are covered and the scheme is reasonably generous.

A BSI Plus package is also available for substantially more money but is probably not particularly good value given you won’t need a clutch and wiper blades aren’t that expensive. By all means, terrorise your BMW dealer to bring down the price to something more sensible.

VERDICT

BMW had a little breather with the last-gen car. Again, it wasn’t bad – not a by long shot – but it wasn’t until the frighteningly expensive but oh-so-brilliant CS version that it really found its feet.

This new car has had a shot of whatever went into the M2 and the M4 CS and it’s brilliant for it. I honestly can’t think of why you’d spend more either on a C63 or – whisper it – a Cayman GTS unless you really, really, really can feel the difference on the road.

There isn’t a dud M car in its passenger car range. They’re all a barrel of laughs and they’re all hooligans and all the better for it. The M4 and its M3 sibling have completed the set.

2021 BMW M4 Competition specifications