Santa baby please bring me the BMW’s baby M car.. the all-new 460bhp M2

THE new BMW M2 could quite possibly be the perfect BMW.

Yes, there are more powerful and potent BMW M cars — the M3, M4, M5 and M8.

But the reason why I love the M2 is because it’s the baby M car of the group, and just a better fit for our tight and twisty roads.

And it’s much easier to manoeuvre around small towns and cities.
Sure, on the German Autobahn an M4 or M5 would be awesome.

But the nimble little M2 is all the M car you’d ever need.

In fact, I’ve been lucky enough to drive all the M cars at the Mondello Park BMW Driving Experience and I always come away with the utmost regard for how well the M2 performs.

But when images of this new 2023 BMW M2 first broke, I wasn’t impressed with the styling and the boxy bodykit.

The launch pictures were of a red M2, and maybe the kit doesn’t lend itself to that colour.

But after spending a week in this M2 that was kindly loaned to me by BMW Ireland, and its stunning Brooklyn Grey metallic paint, its looks have really grown on me.

You will notice the M2’s wide arches, especially from the rear, and underneath will find the same chassis and engine as the M3 and M4.

Power comes from that same 3.0-litre, straight-six, twin turbo, S58 petrol engine.

But it’s been slightly de-tuned to 460bhp and 550Nm of torque compared to the 510bhp and 650Nm of the M3 and M4.

And unlike the M3 and M4 that are available with BMW xDrive all-wheel, the M2 is rear-wheel drive only.

You’d think this would mean that the M2 is extremely tail-happy, but the traction control is superb.

It even has launch control, and this helps the M2 blitz to 0-100kph in just 4.1 seconds, with an electronically limited top speed of 250kph.

My M2 test car came with an eight-speed automatic gearbox, with carbon fibre steering wheel paddles for manual shifting.

But for any budding drifters out there, the M2 also comes with a six-speed manual and it also comes with an M drift Analyser display.

This can be used on a closed road or track, so you can really get to experience what the M2 was built for — serious sideways shenanigans.

And the M Drift Analyser actually rates your drift up to five stars, plus shows you your drift angle, duration and distance.

There are different M driving modes, Road, Sport and Track, and on the steering wheel you have red M1 and M2 buttons that offer different levels of M Madness.

M1 puts the acceleration into efficient, the suspension into sport, steering in comfort and brakes in comfort and the result is medium levels of M Madness.

However, the M2 button unleashes hell with acceleration, suspension, steering and brakes all in Sport mode and this is when the M2 is in its maddest mode.

Everything about the car is turned up to the max — the exhaust sounds mightier as it pops and bangs when you downshift gears.

BMW M cars are notorious for hard suspension, but this M2’s suspension is subtle enough to let the car move around a bit when you are travelling over twisty and bumpy roads.

But it handles like it is on rails with lots more grip than you’d expect for such a powerful rear-wheel drive car, as long as you keep the traction control on.

Otherwise it will happily slide the back end out if you’re not careful.
With 460bhp this little rocket ship drinks fuel like one of Elon Musk’s spaceships.

So as I was properly putting the M2 through its paces, for scientific reasons of course, I only averaged 23mpg and even less if I was having more fun exploring the M2 mode.

Inside, the M2’s cabin is more like a racecar with carbon-fibre everywhere and the seats are superb, proper racecar style buckets, leather-trimmed, heated and electronically controlled.

The bolster is electrically controlled as well as the headrests and for one final party trick, the M badge in the headrest lights up at night.

The M2 features BMWs latest 8 Operating System and its amazing curved display with one 14.9-inch central touchscreen infotainment plus a 12.3-inch display for the driver.

They sit side-by-side and cover more than half the dash.

But amazing as the new M2 is, it comes at a price and will set you back a cool €115,055

I’m glad I live in Northern Ireland as up here it costs £76,885 and that’s still a lot for an M2.

So if you are reading this column Santa, maybe you could drop me off a new M2 for Christmas as I’ve been a very good boy this year.