BMW M boss: "We will try to offer future cars at M2 price point"

The new, second-generation BMW M2 Coupé is important for a number of reasons: it's the M division's cheapest car on sale, it's the final M car to use a pure-combustion powertrain, it's one of the last sports cars to be offered with a manual gearbox and it promises drastically improved pace over its forebear.

And, as BMW M boss Frank van Meel attests, it's the modern-era M car that adheres most rigidly to the purist principles on which the performance brand was originally established. He took Autocar around the new BMW M2 to highlight the most important areas of improvement over the previous car, and to explain exactly what role it plays in the line-up.

What about the previous M2 needed changing?

“I think with the old car, we were a little bit more playful with the rear axle, allowing more drift angles but also not being the fastest on the track. And that’s something we changed: it’s very light-footed still – that’s typical – but it has even more speed on the track. It’s less loose on the rear axle.

“If you change the settings, you can drift as always, but if you’re in serious race mode on the track, it’s more precise. The [previous] M2 also was precise, but this is less, let’s say, spectacular, in a way, because spectacular makes you slower.”

You fought to offer the M2 with a manual gearbox; do you have to have these discussions a lot?

“No, because also within BMW, M has a very high and good reputation – and a very high degree of trust. So we have a very high degree of freedom in what we do. But, of course, if you add something which is not only an adaption to a platform but more or less a gearbox that isn’t there at all in the whole platform, then it’s a little bit longer of a discussion.” 

Do you think M can always offer a car at this price point?

“I would say it’s the other way around there. If you look at potential customers, they have some limits. So there are, let’s say, organic price limits that people have. Of course, you can go up and up and up. But then you lose just a lot of customers and fans. So of course we will try to also offer in the future cars in this price range.”

Does M still have a lot of customers who care about lap times?

“Well, I think the the character is why you buy a car. So I think 100% of our customers value the character of the car. Of course, if you ask how many of them really go to a track, I’d say it's it's quite a high number. I can't tell you how high but in the United States, we know that there's a big number of of customers who go to tracks with their own vehicles. But also in Europe, there are fan groups that meet each other and then they go to a track, or they come to our M driving-experience days.