Ask most car enthusiast which hardcore, stripped-out sports car they’d buy if they could and the answer might unanimously be the Porsche 911 GT3 RS. It’s the most famous, the most storied and, depending on who you ask, the best of them all. However, BMW has something to say about that, as the new BMW M4 GTS is the Bavarians’ answer to Stuttgart’s street-legal racer.
For the most part, the BMW M4 GTS trades blows with the M4 GTS and is capable of keeping up. However, it hasn’t all been easy for the M4 GTS. It’s been criticized equally as much as it’s been praised in the media, as it’s the sort of car that needs to be understood and learned to be appreciated. And even still, it can turn many people off, thanks to its mad styling and hardcore road nature. But Christian Gebhardt from German publication Sport Auto is actually quite fond of the most hardcore BMW M4.
Having said that, though, Gebhardt does claim that the car must be set up properly. In typical German fashion, to get the M4 GTS to perform the way it’s intended to, the car must be set up exactly as you need it, even down to tire pressure. So if you’re on the track, the aerodynamics, including the rear wing and front lip, and suspension need to be properly adjusted. Once this is done, which could take some time to tinker with to find the right setup, the M4 GTS feels fantastic. Admittedly, it isn’t easy to adjust and is sort of a pain in the ass, as you have to break out the tools, adjust the aero manually, then jack the car up and take the wheels off to manually adjust the suspension. Not a two-second job.
But once it’s done, the M4 GTS is a genuine weapon. At the hands of Gebhardt, the BMW M4 GTS was able to put down an impressive 1:09.6 time at Hockenheim, the same time as the Porsche 911 GT3 (though, not the RS), only two tenths of a second slower than the Audi R8 V10 Plus and four tenths faster than the Nissan GT-R. Whether or not the BMW M4 GTS is a proper hardcore sports car or not, that’s an impressive time. Though, it needs to be set up perfectly to do so.
But, as evidenced by Sport Auto, once set up properly, the M4 GTS is an incredibly enjoyable car to drive, incredibly fun and one of the faster sports cars on the market today.
[Source: Bimmerpost]
