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Imhotep Evil · 09:15 AM

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We drive the wild BMW Z4 M Coupe flatout! Come on, take a spin with us!

The Z4 M Coupe is bold, brash, raucous and rumbustious!

The battle lines have been drawn. They run like China's Great Wall through a set of performance figures, demarcating winners and losers in a game that is oft confined to barroom talk.
In this game, BMW's brand new Z4 M Coupe' indeed shades the opposition.

It is superior to Porsche's Cayman S, for instance, in the 0-100 km/h dash. In fact, Mr Coup beats Mr Cay by almost half a second - 5.0 vs 5.4 secs - lugging more weight around, using less cubic capacity. The Beemer also develops more peak power and torque than the Porsche, albeit at higher revs. Which is impressive. But any aficionado will tell you that straight-line whoopies are but a small part of a roadster or coupe's total package of fun. What really flips the pancake is an ability to change direction.

Tracks and twisties

On to the twisties then. For it is only in this kind of environment that all the qualities demanded from a sports car will be put to the test: steering, grip, traction, engine response, in-gear acceleration, the box itself, body control, balance, brakes and so forth. Apart from timing your blitz through the gears or measuring disc sizes and braking distances, it is hard to put objective figures on any of these. For the record, the Z4 M Coupe' carries significantly larger front and rear brake discs than the Cayman S. It also registers a torsional rigidity of 32 000 Nm/degree, whereas 31 500 Nm will be enough to twist the Cayman's body through a single degree. Not much of a difference in an oft-neglected statistic, granted. But it confirms that BMW has pulled out all the stops on the Z4 M Coupe'. This is one very serious sports car, from letting a lot of horses run wild, to limiting body flex with Gestapo-like control. The Z4 M Coupe' is, in fact, such a serious car that Munich expects a lot of them to be snapped up by track enthusiasts.

That's part then, of the reason that we're here, on Circuito Estoril, west of Lisbon on Portugal's Atlantic coast, with a BMW specialist leading the way in a M5, to show us the ins and outs of a technically very demanding circuit. Even on the opening lap, the M5 is pushed to its limits and beyond, the big bruiser running side-ways through a number of corners. The M Coupe', by contrast, hangs on with remarkable ease. After two laps the M5 peels off. It's you, the M Coup and Estoril, all on your own.

Soul and personality

It is brutal, of course, all these extremes. One can murder this car. But you won't kill it; the Z4's integrity is beyond doubt. To discover its personality though - the M soul - it's gotta be off to B-roads around Cascais, on Portugal's Atlantic coast, west of Lisbon. For it is in such surroundings, on roads that weave and wind, twist and turn, snake and curl and rise and dip that the Coup changes from an instrument of assault to an object of pure joy, not to mention desire. The driving is still fast and aggressive, and corners are still tackled with gusto and enthusiasm.

But the subtleties and rewards of improvisation now take precedence over the gladiatorial need to subjugate. This is hard but good-natured jostling, rather than veni, vedi, veci. In fact, vehicle and via interact so intimately, that they morph into two sides of the same coin. They are there for each other, as partners; not pitted against each other, as foes. And if the M Coupe' is mighty and merciless around Estoril, it is staggeringly supreme in the real world.

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The two M models, by contrast, offer feel and feedback by the bucket full. Suddenly, one knows exactly what the state of interaction between the front wheels and road surface is, and therefore how much turn and grip would still be available at any given point. So, attack remains the name of the game, but the spirit and purpose differs vastly from going to war on a track. Ditto for the results; in the real world the M shows a far more refined side, compared to its brutal on-track demeanour. Especially enthralling is the car's willingness to provoke a tinge of oversteer from the tail, when turned in under hard braking.

With some nifty, deft touches on the steering wheel all of this is counter-balanced and co-axed, of course, into a short, sharp four-wheel drift - but only for a moment, before it's back to utilizing copious amounts of feedback through the fingers and pants to target the apex, followed but long joyful tail-slides on the exit. On the surface of it all, it is brawny and brash, irreverant and bold, lusty and raucous. Yet mechanically it is so sound and sonorous that, beyond it all, the M Coupe' is really a two-in-one, with ever-so-sweet intestines hidden behind a thoroughly rumbustious personality. So perfectly are the two integrated, though, that one would never tell.

Brutal M diff

This is a sublime car then, if not entirely sophisticated. On the edge of performance, the M could even be brutal, as evidenced by a tail happy to be thrown around like a rag doll. And here-in lies the second big secret of Z4 M models, compared to the standard issue: the M3's variable engine-speed sensing M differential lock on the rear axle, ensuring optimal traction under all conditions.
Hang the Coup's tail out then, with a quick spurt of throttle adrenaline in a traffic circle, followed by a fish-tail of reverse swing out of the exit, and you can literally feel the M diff throwing power around from one tractable wheel to the other.

Imagine

Now, imagine all of this enveloped in a taut, muscular sculpture radiating with testosterone. Imagine the power under such a wide elongated hood. Imagine being seated in a snug little cabin on the rear axle of such a sharply truncated, guillotined-off tail. Man, heads will indeed roll, as it's rolling thunder from four blazing pipes bellowing with a hoarse roar that quickly builds to a 8000 rpm scream. Add now, the short flick of a gearshift coated in honey and those long, swoopy powerslides, easy as an eagle, if not quite as graceful.

Enough to match - or even trump - the Cayman? The Beemer is a brute, the Porsche refined; the Coup more canine-like, the Cayman more of a cat. So, think what you want. But it all points to a great slugfest if these two ever happen to meet on - or perhaps in - the 'Ring, rather than just your common old barroom.

Complete article: http://www.wheels24.co.za/Wheels24/N...945907,00.html

Damn, this bimmer seems so hardcore, makes its big brothers and class competitors seem like poseurs.