Reviews for the BMW M2 have been stellar from the get go. Even though the popular M car might’ve seemed like it was made out of a parts bin left around the Munich HQ floor, the M2 impressed from the beginning because it was exactly what BMW knows how to do best: a small, front engine, rear drive coupe. That’s what the BMW M name was built on and that’s exactly what the M2 delivered. Therefore a lot of people were worried that the new M2 Competition might not live up to the expectations.
The M2 Competition comes to enhance the capabilities of the car to ever higher levels. In order to do so, BMW fitted a proper M engine under the hood and retired the N55 mill after a stellar career, if you will. The engine is not new but borrowed from the M3 and M4 cars, in this application the S55 3-liter straight six twin-turbo mill making 400 HP instead of 425. Torque was also drastically improved compared to the outgoing M2, taken up to 550 Nm (406 lb-ft).
Those, however, are just numbers on a piece of paper. More power doesn’t necessarily translate into more fun, unless it is applied in the right dosage. Therefore, M engineers went to work and started tweaking the suspension and everything else on this car, to make it drive better than ever. Therefore, the M2 competition comes with a revised suspension, better cooling, a revised steering rack and a carbon fiber wishbone shaped brace under the hood, which stiffens up the entire front end.
That’s what the guys from Autocar noticed the most when it came to the M2 Competition. Sure, the added power is nice but the changes done to the chassis are more important and more noticeable. In the end though, the M2 Competition will have to take on brilliant cars like the Porsche Cayman and that’s truly quite a challenge. Is the BMW better now? Well, that’s what Autocar seems to think.
