8
REVIEW
BMW M6 Coupe 2012 Review - International
Hard-edged king of the BMW M V8 family or another heavy softie? Either way, it's stupidly fast.BMW M6 Coupe
International Launch?
Malaga, Spain
Malaga, Spain
What we liked
>> Prettiest modern BMW?
>> Crunching mid-range torque
>> High grip levels and stability
Not so much?
>> Steering bland just off centre
>> Weight issue never goes away
>> Lacks nuance and finesse?
?
OVERVIEW?
>> M5 in a slinky two-door body?
Every single BMW M6 in the modern era has had the same issue. Everyone expects that the cut-down, short-wheelbase M5 will be a track-day champion; stripped of mass and taking everything M5 and making it faster and harder.But for one reason or another, it has never quite worked like that. Take this one. Stuffed full of M5 engine, gearbox, diff and suspension technology, it’s 10 percent more powerful than the car it replaces, it has demonstrably more torque and it uses 30 per cent less fuel.
It’s also heavier, a fact BMW defends as being mostly caused by added safety equipment and a meatier specification sheet.
There’s no doubt it’s a charger in a straight line, with 413kW of power boosting it to 100km/h in a Ferrari-esque 4.2 seconds.
There’s also no doubt it has used its two turbochargers to crunch from memory the enormous torque hole the old V10 had below 5000rpm, too.
So, it’s fast. But at 1850kg (a dry 1850kg), can it be fun?
?
PRICE AND EQUIPMENT?
>> More luxury, more cost
BMW is a long way from arriving at the pricing or even the specification list for the Australian M6. Indeed, with the 3-Series barely settled down, an X1 facelift on the way and upgraded engines to scatter through the 5-Series, it’s hard to imagine it’s a top priority.Still, expect the M6 to sit above the M5, even though it offers less tangible metal for the money.
That means it will carry at least everything the M5 carries, and that will include M Sport seats that are supportive and terrifically comfortable, with soft initial cushions that eventually demonstrate their long-drive strength with firmer cushions below.
They’re fully electric, with pneumatically adjustable lumbar support and active headrests, which move to minimize whiplash if you get hit from behind.
Both front seats are heated and each side of the car has its own climate-control brain, so travelling temperature isn’t direct dependent.
Besides the M6 logos all over the place, it has cruise control, it has a fairly disappointing standard audio system and it has satnav with BMW’s now normal permanent stand-tall display atop the dash.
The optional equipment list is truly frightening. Radar cruise, head up display, ConnectedDrive... It goes on. I could tell you in more detail but my therapist says it’s better for me if I don’t. We could be here all day and you’d never know about...
The cars we drove all had carbon-ceramic brake discs, too, which come with six-piston front calipers and single-piston rears.
?
MECHANICAL
>> All torque and power or more nuanced?
This is a car that promises a lot, especially if your introduction to it is via the dispassionate medium of paper.The M5 is a stupendously fast business express so, with a shorter wheelbase and its sleeker body, the M6 should be all of that and more. It’s also everything its convertible stablemate is, but logic tells you it should be heaps lighter and heaps stiffer, both of which convert neatly into more speed and driving fun.
The engine is identical to the ones you find in M6 Convertibles and M5s, with 4.4 litres of capacity out of a V8 sourced from BMW. It gets heavily tweaked for more everything, with a pair of twin-scroll turbochargers nestled between the banks of the V8 and more cooling than the Hadron Collider.
The sheer data makes impressive reading, with 680Nm of torque available from 1500rpm -- just a tick over idle, really -- and it keeps twisting that hard until 5750rpm. There’s a reason we’ve gone for the torque before the power, and not just because you feel it first on your way up the rev range.
The power is also impressive and a lot of sports car pretenders wouldn’t mind twisting out 412kW at 6000 revs, especially if the engine turns that peak into a plateau for a thousand revs more.
Combine that with more data, including the ability to use 30 percent less fuel than the old V10 M6, despite greater mass, and you’re trending somewhere good.
At least part of that fuel consumption (the claimed combined city/country cycle is 9.9L/100km with a 232 gram emission figure) is due to the seven-speed double-clutch gearbox. The Getrag-sourced unit shifts quickly, has been fiddled to blip hard on downshifts and, unlike the gearbox it replaces, it can be belted away from the lights in its launch control mode twice in the same minute.
It carries the now-traditional trick M differential to get all that performance through to the standard 19-inch rubber and it’s braked by monster carbon-ceramic brake discs with (finally) a good-looking set of six-piston calipers up front.
It’s hard to be blasé about 4.2 seconds to 100km/h, which the M6 does time and again with ease, and while the Australian cars will carry 250km/h speed limiters, European M6s can have their limiters moved 55km/h upstream.
For those curious few, that’s the same top speed as the M5 and the M6 Convertible have, and it’s a tenth quicker to 100km/h than them, too.
The 6-Series is a derivative of the 5-Series (the M5’s host body), so M5 DNA is all over the M6.
There is an adjustable traction control system and an adjustable gearshift speed (and harshness) system and the steering weight is also adjustable.
It stops all of this with 400mm front discs, clamped by six piston calipers and, at the rear 396mm discs with, curiously, a single piston caliper. They sit inside 19-inch wheels and tyres, though there’s a 20-inch option, which most will take up if they also tick the box for the carbon ceramics (with 410mm front discs) that save 19.4kg. Or almost one per cent of the kerb weight.
More photos of the BMW M6 Coupe at www.motoring.com.au
PACKAGING?
>> More boot than Convertible; good, clean living inside
COMPETITORS?
>> Without knowing what it is, it’s hard to know who it’s fighting
ON THE ROAD?
>> Chassis hangs on while engine does its stuff
More photos of the BMW M6 Coupe at www.motoring.com.au
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Written byMichael Taylor
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