A Good Ride in the The BMW M4

Everyone remembers having a little crush on the BMW M3. That screaming naturally aspirated high revving V8 engine, beautiful curves and that perfect “drivers car” performance all around.

Well, now we all know about the latest version, which actually replaces the M3 Coupé. Introducing what ourselves at Mr. Goodlife like to call either Jekyll or Hide depending on the moment; The BMW M4 is an incredibly refined, meticulously crafted sports car. We were given a chance to spend some time with it from our friends at BMW who guessed we’d quite like it; and so we did.

The M4s every day drivability is so important; It’s the kind of car you WANT to drive everyday. It not only looks stunning inside and out, but performs like a true M car. Thanks to the charisma and heartfelt engineering results of BMW, you feel you are in an extremely capable sports car the moment you hit the start/stop button and you certainly take note of the passion and quality the team has persevered to create it. We love the new look. Its aggressive yet beautiful, subtle and sophisticated.

The car features a twin-turbocharged inline 6-cylinder engine producing 431 horsepower and 550 Nm of torque at its peak (between 1800 to 5700 rpm). If you do the maths you find the new M3 has more torque, more horsepower, and faster acceleration then the old M3. Actually it has even better fuel economy and a lighter curb weight. Sitting pretty, it’s slightly bigger and wider, which to us looks better then the old M3 and more importantly feels better for your rear seat passengers, all in all. A Win!

Launch control is spectacular, and propels the car from 0-60mph in a short 4 second sprint (Turn the DSP completely off by holding down the button for a few seconds, select mode 3 for the most aggressive sequential shifting, hit the brake with your left foot and floor the throttle until a checkered flag appears stating launch control is active. Then release the brake and hold on to your heart). We like the fact that the sound of the car is tameable too. It sounds pretty good in each driving situation. Throw it into efficiency mode and you find yourself in an almost luxury setting, with a low noise in the cabin and just the road to lead you to your destination.

It can be a cruiser when it wants to, but the bottom line is this car wants to be driven. It wants to be played with, tampered with and entertained. It also wants to be the entertainer. So as soon as you put your foot down, you can imagine very well what the engineers at BMW have done. We feel like it doesn’t sound as tasty as the V8 in the M3 but we aren’t one to complain as we get shocking performance in return.

When you buy your new M4, play with the different driving modes (suspension, chassis stiffness & steering), play with the sequential shifting modes and understand the cars driving dynamics before you push it. If you learn how to drive this car correctly I guarantee you will be having some great fun in no time! Our top tip is to opt for the M Carbon Ceramic Brakes as they better suit the cars aggressive performance perfectly!