Action Coupé

Action Coupé

Words: Will Beaumont Photos: BMW

It isn’t the new M4 or the 625hp M8 Competition. It isn’t even the wonderfully insane M5 CS; rear bucket seats, GT3-style yellow lamps, gold wheels and all. Despite each car’s commitment to thrills and speed, none of them exposes BMW’s commitment to pleasing enthusiast drivers quite as well as the new 220d Coupé.

Hear me out. It would have been so easy for BMW to follow its own template and spin a twodoor coupé from its current 1 Series platform. It could have made a front-wheel drive 2 Series Coupé as easily as it made, oh I don’t know, the 2 Series Gran Coupé. Simple, cheap and, as BMW has already taken a blow to its reputation and opened its arms to front-wheel drive cars, no one would have lost any sleep over a transverse-engined sporty twodoor. Just another Audi TT, Volkswagen Scirocco, Peugeot RCZ rival, no harm in that. It’s what everyone does. Or did, when people wanted coupés and not crossovers.

But BMW didn’t take the easiest path. It didn’t follow trends. It didn’t do the obvious thing. Instead, it got hold of the platform that underpins the 3 and 4 Series, which BMW calls Cluster Architecture (CLAR), and has squeezed and shrunk it to make a direct replacement for the old 2 Series Coupé. Longitudinal front-mounted engine and drive going through the rear axle. Traditional BMW credentials. The chop job on the floor pan is even more impressive when you consider

that the CLAR platform isn’t just the underpinnings for the 3 and 4, it’s the basis for everything upwards. The 5 Series, all the X models including the X7, the V12-powered 7 Series… everything.

The X7-style DNA deep within the new 2 Series means one thing, it’s not as compact as before. Compared to the first generation 2 Series Coupé, the F22, the latest car is 105mm longer at 4537mm and 64mm wider at 1838mm. Its wheelbase is 2741mm, 51mm longer than before, the front track width 1575mm, an increase of 54mm, while the rear track is 1587mm, an extra 31mm of width. However, at 1390mm tall, it’s 28mm lower than the old model.

Yet, in most areas, it’s still smaller than a 4 Series Coupé. It’s 231mm shorter, yet with only a 110mm shorter wheelbase, the overhangs are smaller too. It’s 14mm narrower than the 4, which isn’t much, so the 2 Series is blessed with a promising square stance. There’s one dimension where the 2 Series is larger than its bigger brother, it’s actually 7mm taller.

Plus, and you can make up your own mind about this, the new 2 Series Coupé is a handsome looking car. And we don’t get to say that about BMWs all too often these days. Its rear lights look a bit sad and droopy, maybe. I can’t quite spot the similarities to the 2002 that BMW assures us are there, either. Yet still, its wide stance, long bonnet, simple well-chiselled features and clean flanks make it look deeply appealing to me. And I can’t be the only one.

As wonderful as all this is in the 220d package, with its 190hp engine, and as much of a triumph that such a car exists, it’s not the best version of the new Coupé. Straight off the bat, BMW has launched the two-door 2 Series with an M Performance model, the M240i. If the

220d represented BMW’s dedication to enthusiasts better than a 635hp super saloon, then what in the name of Joachim Winkelhock does an M Performance 2 Series stand for?

To have any idea just how excited we should be about this car, we need to know what it’s about. Anyone familiar with the old M240i will spot some similarities in its equipment. Notably, the engine. Upfront is the same 3-litre turbocharged straight-six as before, the B58, but now with 374hp, an extra 34hp. It puts out 500nm of torque, too.

The ZF eight-speed gearbox, now the only transmission available, will also be familiar to most. Actually, it’ll be familiar to anyone that’s gone within 20 feet of a new car, it’s a transmission that’s fitted to practically everything, not just BMWs.

Yet, there are two unusual aspects and both relate to traction. First up, the most obvious, the new car has four-wheel drive. And then, despite the added grip from the front-driven wheels, the new M240i also gets a limited-slip differential as standard. Serious business then.

It’s all very business-like inside, too. It’s dark and simple. None of the 4 Series glamour has made it into the 2, despite the shared architecture. What is apparent, however, is a deep sense of quality. It all feels solid and robust. Leagues ahead of the slightly scratchy, hollow feel of the hatchback-made-fancy that was the old 2 Series.

The advantages of a top tier architecture deep in the M240i make themselves known as soon as you’re inside, then. It means, finally, that the 2 Series has the ambience to match the creamy B58. This is no raging M engine. Its character is, and has been since its launch in 2015, much more sophisticated. Cultured, even. It murmurs and whispers about its power and performance. That doesn’t mean it’s lacking in the personality department, far from it. In a world of anodyne and honestly, boring turbocharged motors, the B58, in an M Performance car or not, is refreshingly distinctive to its core. It’s soothing, reassuring. It’s on your side. It has the power to move you rapidly, it can

excite you. But it’s never wayward, shouty or disobedient. All of its best attributes come flooding back when you start the M240i and it fills the cabin with its low unintrusive mumble.

Weaving out onto the road, you’re struck by one significant difference between this car and the old M240i. It is bigger. You feel every one of those extra 64 millimetres, I assure you. The M240i has an even bigger track width than its lesser brethren, too, so that doesn’t help it feel compact.

Its chunky stance sharpens your mind. You’re suddenly very conscious of kerbs, potholes, and cat’s eyes, in the same way you are when in a more senior M car. And that seems like a shame. The carefree way that you could barrel about in the old coupé was a huge part of its charm. More of the road was yours to play around in, the lines around corners were open to greater interpretation. The new M240i’s size doesn’t encourage quite the same sort of fun.

Perhaps its more solemn attitude is down to the way it rides, too. It’s composed, smooth like that silky engine. You get the sense that it’s been truly set up by experts, ones that actually understand UK roads too. It’s not soft, there’s a sporty firmness, but it’s neither harsh nor bouncy. The latter was a notso-loved trait of the old M240i.

Maybe the new car’s earnest nature is down to the traction it produces. As you expect, even on wet and greasy roads – the only sort of roads that seems to exist in the UK at the moment – you can put your foot down, unleash as much of the 500nm of torque as you can find and there’s just a little tickle from the traction control in a straight line.

It’s all mightily impressive. And although perhaps, the new car is still not as unshakably cool as an M440i on a challenging road, it gets far closer than the almost £9000 price difference would suggest.

Except in one area. There’s one scenario in which the M240i xDrive doesn’t feel as comfortable. In a fast corner, it’s not as coherent and dependable as you expect. It’s not as trustworthy as the four-wheel drive system initially suggests. It feels on edge, the signals being transmitted to you are that the rear tyres might be on the precipice of losing their hold on the tarmac.

They might not be, you just can’t tell. And when you’re in third or fourth gear and travelling at the pace the secure straight-line traction has led you to believe is responsible, you aren’t in the right position to start playing with the throttle

to find out.

It’s unnerving and, frankly, not very BMW. If there’s one constant in the cars that come from Munich, it’s that you know what the back tyres are doing. You might not have the power, performance and ultimate control over the rear wheels to dictate their behaviour, but you sure as hell know what’s going on back there. And, usually, the higher up the M-scale you go, the more detailed the feedback, the more familiar you are with the tread block’s strain. Such knowledge is important when you’ve got chunks of massive performance to deploy and it’s noticeable when it’s lacking, like in the M240i.

On drier tarmac, brain to rear axle dialog is not as much of a problem. By adding more pressure through the suspension, more load through those rear springs, the lines of communication become clearer. It’s still not telepathic, you still need to be wary, but it’s less unnerving.

In slow corners, when the stakes are lower, you can be more nonchalant with the feedback you receive, adding more throttle than might be necessary. In these situations, the M240i feels like the consummate BMW. Four-wheel drive or not, it’s tail-focussed, squirming and rotating as you squeeze the accelerator. In second gear, it feels manageable, exploitable, all the things we’ve come to expect from small BMW performance cars. It’s such a dream in these instances, the sort of moments when you actually really might push your car, that it makes up for much of the high-speed vagueness. Which, remember, is only perception, it never once snapped, kicked sideways or troubled the traction control through a high pace bend, it just felt like it might…

If the M240i was as playful and approachable as it is on tight and twisty roads, you’d seriously have to consider what the point of the M440i was. It’s just as sophisticated in terms of its comfort, ride and drivetrain and it feels no slower in the real world. It’s a little more juvenile, yes, and some of the time that’s welcome. But on fast bends, the extra cash that buys you that extra investment in its development and some extra wheelbase, all seems worth it.

That doesn’t mean the M240i isn’t worth its £45,795 price tag. Take away the weight of responsibility it holds as a more bespoke model than any of its family members, ignore the fact that without it we wouldn’t get another M2, currently a sparkling jewel in BMW’s lineup, and it still justifies every penny of its asking price. Combine it all together, and the M240i xDrive can wear its crown as BMW’s ambassador for the driving enthusiast with pride.