Road Test
BMW M6 Coupe
Test date 22 November 2005
Price as tested £50,450
For Awesome performance, engine, SMG gearbox
AgainstBrake fade, fuel economy, small touring range
On the face of it the new 500bhp, £80,755 BMW M6 could be regarded as one of modern motoring’s more ambitious follies. After all, it has two fewer doors and significantly less room in its rear seats than the M5 on which it is based, and yet it costs an entire Golf GTi more than its accomplished four-door cousin. Logic, you therefore conclude, is not one of the M6’s watchwords.
See this car in the car in the metal, however, and you immediately understand why BMW has had the confidence to charge such a premium for it above the already expensive M5. From its beautifully sculpted 19in forged alloy wheels to its aggressive new nose cone and carbonfibre roof panel, the M6 is very obviously a more exquisite animal than the ‘Is-it-a-real-one-or-isn’t-it?’ M5.
The M6 is rather more than just an M5 wearing a smarter set of threads. It may share the saloon’s thunderous 5.0-litre V10 engine and seven-speed SMG gearbox, but there are a range of technical differences beneath the skin, all of which combine to lend it a quite different personality to the M5. And it’s a sharper personality – let’s be clear about this from the outset.
In isolation these differences are not sufficient to require the rewriting of any headlines. The M6 has a fractionally shorter wheelbase than the M5, weighs 50kg less, has a slightly broader rear track and wears marginally wider and significantly more aggressive tyres – in this instance Continental Sport Contact 2s as opposed to the more flamboyant Pirelli P Zero Corsas of the original launch cars we drove in April. Stir these ingredients together, with the knowledge that BMW’s engineers have managed to lower the centre of gravity by 6cm, and you end up with a clearly improved dynamic package.
If we listed the entire goodie count here we’d use up the rest of the magazine: apart from Bluetooth connection, which curiously costs £520 extra, there isn’t much you’ll want for from the interior.
Your Say