Item: BMW M2 (2015-2021)
Rating: 4.5

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The advent of a full-blooded compact M car has been rather long in the pot.

In 2011, BMW unveiled a feature-length trailer in the guise of the BMW 1 Series M Coupé but resisted the customer-driven urge to make it a proper volume addition to the M model line-up.

Like all M cars, the M2 earns a badge in the branded polo shirt position of the kidney grille
Matt Prior
Editor-at-large

Two years later we got the next best thing: the BMW M235i, a car based on the then-new BMW 2 Series and breathed on heavily by M division. We like it very much. But the real thing it conspicuously wasn’t, even after it was reworked slightly and called the BMW M240i.

Now though, with the 2 Series very much a separate entity – and the awkward nomenclature problem encountered by the 1M fixed – the kosher version lands.

As a flagship, it fits the billing. Flagrantly muscular in the arches (in likeable contrast to the M240i), unmistakably succinct (in likeable contrast to the BMW M4) and undoubtedly butch underneath (it’s 30bhp more powerful than the 1M), the M2 appears to be the machine we were after.

And at £46,430 it is – appropriately – by far the cheapest way into the bona fide M car range.

That price makes it noticeably more expensive than the equally powerful Mercedes-AMG A45 and Audi RS3 and also puts it handily between the Audi TTS and the Porsche 718 Cayman and the more powerful Audi TT RS and Porsche Cayman S, the models closest to the M2’s two-door coupé format.

Of course, all of those cars feature four-cylinder engines except the TT RS which uses Audi's blown five-cylinder unit, making BMW’s persistence with the concept of a turbocharged straight six a very appealing point of differentiation.

That being the case, one of the M2’s most potent competitors is likely to be a stablemate: the sporting 335bhp M240i and a starting price £10k shy of its nominally more distinguished sibling could still prove highly attractive to buyers.

It’s crucial, then, the smallest, most affordable M car underwrites the anticipatory excitement with actual performance prowess.

Verdict

Model tested:

Rating: 9

Used BMW M2 2015-2021 review

Good

Gifted chassis

Pumped-up appearance

Muscular performance

Practicality

Bad

Interior quality

Unsympathetic stability control

Long waiting list

DESIGN & STYLING

The M2 looks the part, mostly on account of the bespoke chassis underneath.

The M240i’s problem, visually, is a lack of girth, but the M2’s 71mm increase in rear track width and additional 64mm at the front solves that, while confirming that M division has repeated the 1M trick of plundering the M3/M4 chassis for its more capable suspension components.

The knobbly, carbonfibre-effect plastic trim in places is less offensive than many pseudo-fibres, but I’d settle for vinyl if BMW’s bottom line prohibits the fitment of something stitched
Nic Cackett
Road tester

Both axles are extensively modified over regular BMW 2 Series models, including forged aluminium wheel carriers and control arms. There’s additional bracing between the suspension towers to augment stiffness, while at the back, the bushes have been dispensed with altogether and the subframe is attached directly to the body.

The 19in forged rims at either side of the five-link rear axle are now 10in wide, and visible beneath them are uprated M compound steel brakes.

Efforts to make the physically larger M2 lighter have paid off; on our scales, it weighed only 15kg more than the BMW M235i we tested in 2014 and maintained the established 52 percent front, 48 percent rear weight distribution.

Over the nose is BMW’s familiar N55 six-cylinder engine, although the twin-scroll turbocharged 3.0-litre unit gets a round of updates that boost power to 365bhp at 6500rpm. The all-aluminium engine receives a number of high-end components from the M3/M4’s S55 motor, such as the pistons, while cooling and lubrication have been upgraded.

Peak torque is 343lb ft at 1400-5560rpm, although an overboost function makes 369lb ft over a slightly shorter range (1450-4750rpm).

The M2 gets an auto-blipping six-speed manual gearbox as standard, or an optional seven-speed M DCT dual-clutch automatic transmission, as fitted to our test car.

BMW’s Active M Differential – an electronically controlled multi-plate LSD also shared with the M3/M4 – marshals the drive at the rear, which, unlike the BMW M240i, is where the M2 exclusively sends its power.

A recent facelift, saw BMW avoid tampering with the mechanicals and keep all changes merely cosmetic. However, there is growing suggestions that BMW ahead of the second generation M2 will produce a final hurrah in the shape of a stripped out M2 CSL with its 3.0-litre engine punching out 400bhp.

INTERIOR

Assessing the 1M’s interior five years ago, we questioned the legitimacy of basing a £40k sports car on a much more modestly priced family hatch – and the same argument applies here.

The BMW 2 Series may have earned its coupé spurs, but the cabin – or the dash, at least – is BMW 1 Series architecture designed to turn a profit in a £21k entry-level model.

It took me ages to find a driving position with which I was totally happy. Somehow in something more basic it would be so much easier
Matt Prior
Editor-at-large

An M-specific spruce of dials, needles and logos does not lift the M2’s ambience significantly above that level, meaning the current Audi TT and the Porsche 718 Cayman are comfortably a class apart. Although a recent facelift has improved the appearance of the exterior and the fitted the M2 with the latest iDrive infotainment offering, little has been drastically changed to this small M car.

Still, the benefits of the 2 Series platform are obvious enough. The longer you spend in the flagship, the more you appreciate just how practical the car actually is – particularly in comparison with the two-seat Porsche.

Even the four-seat TT is distinctly less habitable in the rear than the M2, which manages to accommodate two additional adults without immediately triggering claustrophobia. It also comes with a capacious 390-litre boot and the ability to fold the rear seatbacks flat, which ought to be music to the ears of anyone who has tried to fit a week’s shopping into a 718.

The M2 does a decent job of catering for the driver, too. You sit slightly higher than in the Porsche, but on reasonably supportive leather sports seats and with the very fine M-specific steering wheel (also in leather) in front of you.

The driving position is redolent of the M4’s, and while the removal of 10kg worth of sound deadening might have made the model significantly louder than the M240i, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as we’re about to find out.

As for standard equipment, the M2 is reasonably well equipped - with 19in black alloys shod in mixed tyres, an active differential, a beefy bodykit, quad-exhaust system, LED headlights, rear spoiler and M-tuned braking system and suspension fitted as standard. Inside there is a black Dakota leather upholstery, dual-zone climate control, interior LED lighting and BMW's brilliant iDrive infotainment system complete with a 8.8in touchscreen display, sat nav, DAB radio, Bluetooth and USB connectivity, and BMW's online services.

The M2 's Professional Navigation system and Professional Media package comes with desirable iDrive niceties such as an 8.8in display and the exceptionally good Real Time Traffic Information. BMW Online Services are part of the deal, but the getting Apple CarPlay requires a tick in an option box, as does access to online entertainment and wifi hotspot preparation - setting you back £235, with the other two options don't cost any extra.

That’s desirable, although the iDrive’s connection to a smartphone is generally faultless and therefore easily capable of supporting Spotify.

With BMW ConnectedDrive, the M2 offers a range of niche-targeted apps, including the M Laptimer and a GoPro video app for owners keen to festoon their car with camera mounts.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

It’s easy to forget now, but the BMW 1M was the first M car (leaving aside SUVs) to feature a turbocharged engine.

Unsurprisingly, then, our road test of the M2’s forerunner used the contemporary BMW M3’s epic naturally aspirated 4.0-litre V8 as a point of comparison.

The M2’s size and prickly, ever-present power encourages fast progress
Matt Prior
Editor-at-large

How times have changed: the E92 is a distant memory, its place taken by a continually evolving line-up of codenames based around the same all-aluminium straight six block.

The M2’s N55 lump (as distinct from both the N55HP and S55 used in the BMW M240i and M3/M4 respectively) conforms to our expectations but, more important, earns a fair amount of kudos simply on the basis of it not shrinking any further.

The four-cylinder units of the TTS and 718, in line and flat respectively, are both first-rate turbocharged motors, but neither has the full-bodied presence of BMW’s charismatic 3.0-litre powerplant.

Its increased output and the snappier ratios of the optional dual-clutch auotmatic ’box help to qualify the M2 as palpably rapid from a standing start.

Two up and aided by a needlessly fiddly launch control system, the car hit 60mph from rest in 4.4sec and arrived at 100mph a second quicker than the manual 1M managed in similar conditions.

The manner of its performance is familiar. There is some lag, but never nearly enough to aggravate; throttle response is generally exemplary, as is the engine’s ability to rev as if uninhibited by a turbocharger. Only in extremis – that is, in the region beyond 6500rpm – does it very gently taper its efforts, but even this does nothing to limit the idea that the M2 continues to bristle with accessible, thick-set intensity.

This was common to the M240i and 1M, too, but it deepens here appreciably; the M2 proved nearly half a second quicker from 30-70mph than its forebear and more than two seconds faster than its M Performance stablemate.

Still, it’s the oily symphony of BMW’s still very mechanical straight six that recommends the M2 over its rivals’ more mundane, two-dimensional blather. Its inexhaustible tractability means it fits the effortlessness of an automatic ’box better, too. That, in turn, means we’d narrowly opt for the DCT over the springy default manual, despite the latter occasionally befitting the car’s pugnacious character.

RIDE & HANDLING

We had good reason to praise first the BMW 1M and then the BMW M240i: one was a back-to-basics rear-drive tearaway, the other a crisp and clever modern coupé.

But in both cases there was good reason to temper the adulation. The 1M could be a little numb to steer and quite uncompromising in its spring rates, while the M240i, on adaptive dampers, never really threatened to settle into the kind of groove that would have marked it out as a plausible threat to the all-conquering Porsche 718 Cayman.

Second gear is where M2 is most inclined to go sideways on a track. There’s enough power to provoke and, at these speeds, easily hold a slide
Nic Cackett
Road tester

The M2, as we expected, is dramatically closer to the finished article. For a start, lessons learned from the 1M have clearly been applied.

The passive suspension fitted to its successor is cannily capable of offering a benign level of ride comfort on British roads, despite the obvious level of seriousness still being conveyed by the chassis.

Certainly, the M2 is stiff in a way that ought to feel unfamiliar to an M240i driver, not only in the obvious buttressing of its body control but also in the unprocessed way it responds to the road.

Unlike its cheaper sibling, the out-and-out M car is adept at hunkering down onto a B-road on its obviously broader footprint, reimbursing driver input not just with the feeling of remarkable directional stability but also the limber enthusiasm of a legitimate sports car, and it manages this despite still featuring imperfect steering.

The Servotronic system is still better at bulked-up positivity than disclosure of the contact patch status, but the M2 makes up for this with the clarity of information transmitted through the seatbacks.

There’s a wonderfully unapologetic fierceness to pushing on. Like the 1M, the car’s size and prickly, ever-present power encourage fast progress, as does the noise and the chassis’ adhesiveness.

In this respect, the steroidal rear axle does a better job of containing the engine’s torque than its forerunner’s did, although it’s worth pointing out that BMW’s stability control tuning is less convincing than Porsche’s.

The telltale light may flash a heck of a lot less than it did in the 1M, but the system is still guilty of intervening a little heavy-handedly – even in its so-called Dynamic mode.

Even with this caveat, the M2 remains a terrific thing to drive, not incapable of contentment while commuting (especially with the DCT optioned) and yet atavistically adept at the sinewy hurly burly of a B-road thrash. A proper M car, then.

Recently, most of what you would worry about on a circuit in a BMW M car is managing the slip, and therefore the wear rate, of its rear tyres. But on our dry handling circuit at MIRA, the M2 wasn’t like that.

There’s ample torque to push the tail wide and hold it there, of course, particularly in slower corners, but in most places the M2 had a level of incisiveness, traction and stability that we really hadn’t anticipated.

It is capable of delivering impressive levels of lateral acceleration and will, in a steady state, push on at the front first unless you’ve managed the nose’s weight on the way into a corner. Do so and it’ll corner neutrally, or ease into oversteer just as you like.

MPG & RUNNING COSTS

The idea of the entry-level M2 being more than £12k cheaper than the most affordable M4 is enticing.

Like the Audi RS3 and Mercedes-AMG A45 before it, a sizeable part of the model’s brief is to offer (younger) buyers access to a desirable niche brand at a lower level.

The M2 is rated only just ahead of the TTS’s residuals after three years, based on the car generating healthy sales
Nic Cackett
Road tester

The fact that BMW’s effort comes wrapped in the garb of a coupé – as opposed to a five-door hatch – makes it all the more appealing, as does the presence of the six-cylinder engine.

The powerplant handily separates the BMW from its notable two-door rivals, too, and, on paper at least, opting for the luxury of larger displacement doesn’t mean exorbitantly higher running costs.

At 167g/km and 159g/km of CO2 respectively for the dual-clutch auto-equipped Porsche 718 Cayman S and Audi TTS, VED savings are modest over the 185g/km M2 - although it's better off than the Audi TT RS, while the BMW’s True MPG average of 31.2mpg suggests that decent fuel economy is available if you wish to pursue it.

It’s also worth reiterating that the coupé demonstrates real-world practicality more convincingly than most small sports cars (its boot is comfortably larger and its back seats more habitable), and while the DCT ’box is a £2500 option, the list of standard kit – cruise control, rear parking sensors, two-zone climate control and a fully-loaded iDrive infotainment system – is not wanting for the essentials.

That said, we would still feel inclined to spec the M2 with heated seats (£295) and steering wheel (£160), and keyless access (£350).

VERDICT

Verdict

Model tested:

Rating: 9

Used BMW M2 2015-2021 review

Good

Gifted chassis

Pumped-up appearance

Muscular performance

Practicality

Bad

Interior quality

Unsympathetic stability control

Long waiting list

Previously, we suggested that with the BMW 1M, the brand had confirmed that it still knew what ingredients were essential to the building of a legitimate M car.

After the sometimes uneven M3/M4, the 1M’s spiritual follow-up is further corroboration of that fact.

Smallest M car is also the best. Rapid, brawny and very nearly brilliant
Matt Prior
Editor-at-large

Its passively sprung but provocatively capable chassis is the antidote to its bigger brother’s preoccupation with adaptive modes.

The M2 downscales M’s ambitions when it comes to creating a drive mode for every circumstance, but upscales its repressed talent for tuning a steel and aluminium suspension system to do it all unaided.

Fused with a turbocharged engine that feels shoehorned in rather than filling the void left by a V8, the car – helpfully the cheapest – feels like the most satisfying option in the M-badged range.

Although the Porsche 718 Cayman regained its crown from the M2, it set a gauntlet that would appear daunting to many others who try to usurp the baby M BMW. As a result, it has the legs on the Audi TTS and five-cylinder bruiser the Audi TT RS, Lotus Elise Cup 250, Alfa 4C and Jaguar F-Type.

Matt Prior

Title: Editor-at-large

Matt is Autocar’s lead features writer and presenter, is the main face of Autocar’s YouTube channel, presents the My Week In Cars podcast and has written his weekly column, Tester’s Notes, since 2013.

Matt is an automotive engineer who has been writing and talking about cars since 1997. He joined Autocar in 2005 as deputy road test editor, prior to which he was road test editor and world rally editor for Channel 4’s automotive website, 4Car.

Into all things engineering and automotive from any era, Matt is as comfortable regularly contributing to sibling titles Move Electric and Classic & Sports Car as he is writing for Autocar. He has a racing licence, and some malfunctioning classic cars and motorbikes.