The Antisocial German: The BMW M4

(Special thanks to BMWBLOG for featuring this piece as well.)

“Benchmark” is an overused word in the automotive world, but few cars have earned the title as honestly as the BMW M3.  It’s a car that’s universally hailed as one of the most successful and notable of the past three decades and practically spawned the entire genre of performance sedans.  It’s also the car that virtually every manufacturer guns for with their own efforts, from brands as disparate as Chevrolet to Lexus to Alfa Romeo to Mercedes; everyone wants to knock the M3 off its pedestal to claim the mantle of “Best Sports Sedan in The World.”

There have been four generations of M3 prior to the latest and each has had its own unique recipe to bake the performance cake.  In 1985, the first generation M3, the E30 (car guys love to talk in chassis codes), was a homologation special from BMW, built from a standard 3-series car to allow racing in the Group A Touring Car racing series.  (“Homologation” in motorsports roughly states that a racing car must be generally based off a production car.  As you might guess, manufacturers go to astounding lengths to game this system.)  Its 2.3-liter Inline-4 engine produced 192hp (though later special versions made up to 235hp), and featured revised suspension bits, brakes, driveline, and body panels from the more mundane 3-series.  It was an immediate hit.

The second generation car, the E36, arrived to the market in 1992 with a 240-hp I6 engine, while the third generation car, the E46, arrived in 2000 and upped the ante to 340-hp from its I6 engine.  And then in 2007, BMW released the E92 version of the M3, with an amazingly high-revving 414-hp V8.  It was the apogee of normally-aspirated BMW engine goodness.

(Please note that I’m listing only the “base” versions of each generation of M3.  BMW has produced coupe, convertible, and sedan versions of all but the E30 cars, and each version has spawned several special versions as well.  The chassis codes I list are all related to the coupe versions of the car)

The current model, the F82, arrived in 2014.  With this release, BMW also unhelpfully split the car’s nomenclature in two, with the sedan version retaining the M3 moniker and the coupe and convertible adopting a new numbering system.  Thus was born the M4.  (Don’t try to understand.)

When the M-division released the specs for the F82 M4, you could almost hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the purists over the scream of the outgoing car’s stratospherically-revving engine note.  It was, a legion of fanboys cried, a proverbial bridge too far:  BMW had plumbed the Inline-6 with not one but two turbochargers.  As the French would put it:  C’est pas possible!  (As BMW responded: “Ben si, Monsieur. C’est possible.”)  The fact the new car not only made more horsepower than the outgoing V8 but did so with a nearly flat torque curve (instead of the massively peaky torque curve of the E92) made no difference.  The mere presence of turbochargers was viewed in some quarters as the ultimate sell-out, a dilution of the normally-aspirated virtuousness the M-Division had always delivered.  Car guys are fragile souls and rarely take to such tectonic changes lightly.  As an offset to enthusiasts for the forced-induction slight, BMW reduced the weight of the M4 by 138-lbs over the previous M3 (3389-lbs vs. 3527-lbs.), since "adding lightness" is one of the ultimate virtues in the performance car canon.

The car you see on this page arrived off the Wallenius Line’s “Tugela” car-carrier at the Port of Baltimore in mid-May of this year, had some special bits installed by technicians at BMW’s port facility, then made its way via truck to Baron BMW in Merriam, Kansas.  And from Baron, this particular car made its way to my garage in Kansas City, Missouri.  Yes, this is my new personal car.

I’m no stranger to BMWs and I’m also no stranger to M-Division cars.  Prior to this car, I’ve had two successive E92 M3s, the first of which I picked up via BMW’s fabulous European Delivery Program at BMW Welt in Munich; the second of which I’ve written about before (as has another writer).  I am also an unabashed and unapologetic fan of both the brand and the BMW Team RLL racing squad, and Dreamy Wife has driven two generations of X5 diesels in succession (and also had a BMW-family Mini Cooper S at one point).

This particular car is finished is lustrous Mineral White Metallic, while the interior is swathed top-to-bottom in what BMW calls Sakhir Orange/Black Merino leather (but you can call Campbell’s Tomato Soup Red).  Pretty well all available package options were selected (including the sublime DCT M Double-clutch transmission), but most notable is the Competition Package (more on that later).  One option I declined were the M Carbon Ceramic Brakes.  Not only did this save over $8000 but I find these brakes to be annoying to use around town (squeaks!) and overkill for virtually all types of daily (even spirited) driving.  Unless you’re planning frequent track days with your M4, I suggest sticking with the already-potent standard M Brakes (denoted visually by their vibrant blue calipers versus the gold versions on the carbon clampers).

The “standard” M4 is well-equipped and loaded with overt performance goodies out of the box, but the aforementioned “ZCP” Competition Package adds an extraordinary amount to the equation.  For an extra $5500, the car receives a power bump to 444-hp (up from 425); gets new springs, dampers, and anti-roll bars, in addition to the Adaptive M Suspension; reconfigured driving modes, a retuned electronic differential, and revised DSC (Dynamic Stability Control); striking 20-inch M alloy wheels (previously seen only on the limited M4 GTS); a throaty M-sport exhaust with black tailpipes; and also swaps out the M4’s standard seats with lovely lightweight sport buckets (again seen prior only on the GTS; they’re dreamy).  BMW also adds in seatbelts with woven-in M stripes for good measure, and some nifty blacked out trim bits (including the rear M4 badge itself).  In my book it’s the mother of all option bargains, and the changes to the driving complexion and personality of the car are anything but superficial.

The subtle power-dome carries over from the previous-generation car.

The M4’s aesthetic reflects that of the rest of BMW’s current lineup, developed first under the design auspices of Adrian van Hooydonk and now under Karim Habib, and it’s arguably the most muscular and aggressive design of the bunch (though the steroidal haunches of the new M2 make a strong argument as well).  To my eyes, the M4 appears quite a bit larger than the outgoing M3, though in actuality the dimensional differences are slight; the new car gains two inches in both length and width, while losing an inch in height.  It’s an optical illusion of increased size I attribute largely to the lengthening of the rear roofline and C-pillar into a more fluid tapering than that of the previous car, as well as a visual reduction in rear overhang that results from the subtle duck-billed trunk lid. Happily the trademark “Hoffmeister Kink” that makes up the trailing edge of the rear side windows looks as fetching as ever.  It’s a stunning car in the flesh, elegant and lithe, whose design is more fully realized and integrated than the previous M3.  Of note is the expanded use of CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic), a high-strength yet lightweight material used to form the car's hood, roof, trunk lid, and driveshaft.  (Yes, the car's driveshaft is made of CFRP.  It's strong stuff.)

Many column-inches have been written about the M4’s loss of sonic purity necessitated by the switch to forced induction, and let me tell you, the car is sick of hearing about this shit.  Stab the Start/Stop button on the dash and it starts with a pronounced, irritable bark.  Do this when the engine is cold and post-bark it grumbles and rumbles with all the delicacy of a Vitamix filled with river rocks, a proverbial poking-of-the-sleeping-bear that seems specifically engineered for dramatic unhappiness.  The sound is also, I’m sorry to say, rather flatulent-sounding.  (Turbochargers require their forced airflow, after all.)  After 30 seconds of so, circulatory fluids warm and do their things and the engine calms into a neutral (though still generally unhappy) attitude of “go get me some coffee and let’s get on with this” readiness.  And how.

The noise itself is generated from a word-salad of engine technology.  The M4’s powerplant is a 3-liter marvel, a twin-turbocharged and intercooled 24-valve inline-6, with an aluminum block and head and direct-fuel injection.  It’s both lighter and more powerful than the outgoing V8, and while it’s certainly no Prius (thank God), it manages to return respectable gas mileage for a car with this performance capacity (EPA city/highway of 17/26mpg).

Configurable digital horsepower and torque gauges, because turbochargers.

Press the accelerator and the M4 scoots with alacrity.  The E92 M3 was an indoor-outdoor housecat, docile, purring, and playful when calm, but ready to pounce when prompted or aroused.  It was content to putter around town like a garden-variety 3-series (lulling in fact, as mellow as gin buzz) until you romped it.  The M4 is a different animal entirely, a Malibu Hills mountain lion always on the lookout for a random jogger, never letting its guard down, almost entirely unamused.  The abundant torque from the motor (406-lb/ft at 1850 rpm all the way to the redline at 7500rpm) means even the slightest pressure to the right pedal provides an urgent and immediate shove in the back, while a heavy prod provides a sudden thunderstorm of sound and movement, a startling and intimidating display of forward propulsion.  The M4 equipped with DSG gets from nil to 60mph in an instrumented 3.7 seconds; the feeling the car delivers at full thrust is one of progressive and extreme progress, a rheostat that transports you from here to there.   These modern turbocharged engines are fun.

The out-of-the-box M4’s suspension can be firm to the point of punishment in almost all selectable modes (Comfort, Sport, and Sport+), and I expected the Competition Pack-equipped car to be even more so.  Surprisingly, the changes made to the setup, including the wonderful Adaptive M suspension, smooth out much of the general harshness of the car’s normal tune.  Even with the larger wheels and attendant smaller tire sidewalls, the higher-spec M4 rides well on all pavement surfaces, absorbing rough patches and funky frequencies with aplomb.  Sport Mode is now your friend even around town (though Sport+ is still best summoned only when you mean it).

The suspension tuning also delivers amazingly neutral handling, with understeer being pretty well nonexistent and oversteer being available on demand but not arriving with any surprises (though given the amount of broad-range torque the engine makes, I hope the stability-control light on the dash is lit with a long-life LED for fear of it burning out before the rest of the dash).  If you want to see the tail swinging wildly in your rear-view mirror, feel free to switch off the electronic nannies and the M4 will happily comply.  (Lawyers:  I did NOT suggest this behavior to any reader.)  And while the previous M3 undoubtedly delivered greater feel from its sublime hydraulic steering, the M4’s electric rack does a fabulous job at approximation (though it does so in certain situations with a bit too much weighting).

The absence of Park is one of this car's great mysteries.

The 7-speed DCT twin-clutch transmission is a thing of elegance and substance, ripping off seamless shifts without hesitation with just a gentle pull of one of the nicely-weighted paddle shifters.  And unlike today's hyper-fluid true automatics, which abstract much of what the gearbox is doing, BMW's DCT still feels, well, mechanical; you're always aware of the computer-driven movement of ultra-refined gear bits rotating and sliding and clutching and releasing, and doing so with the closest of tolerances.  It's an amazing sensation, the pull of a paddle followed by an immediate response; quickness that's almost telepathic, a sense of great forces somewhere at work underneath the car.  I love this transmission so much.

Which makes it all the more ironic that my biggest criticism with the M4 is with that very transmission’s controller, the vaguely organic-looking and feeling stub that feels great and works precisely (if somewhat oddly) save for the absence of one specific feature:  A Park detent.  Nope, there is no way to actually put the M4 in Park by using the DCT controller.  Instead, there’s a multi-step process involving various combinations of the parking brake, a double push of the Start/Stop button, whether you leave the car in Reverse or Drive or Neutral when you come to a stop, and your local forecast for sunspot emanations.  Okay, I made that last bit up, but you’d hardly know it from reading the Owner’s Manual to…let me pause for emphasis…put the damn car in Park!  Yes, I actually read the Owner’s Manual to learn the suggested method for…let me again pause for emphasis…putting the damn car in Park!

There isn’t even consistency across the BMW lineup either, as their torque-converting automatic transmissions are all outfitted with a Park button.  Audi, Mercedes, and Porsche all manage to include a Park setting on their fine twin-clutch systems.  It’s as if BMW carefully, logically, and specifically engineered a system to confuse drivers of their DCT-equipped cars as much as possible.  Mission accomplished.  This is my third BMW DCT and I still have to double check that the car is in Park when I shut it off and open the door.  I've got to believe more than one lawsuit has been filed due to an otherwise attentive owner's M4 rolling away when he or she thought it was fine.  To BMW I say:  Just silly.

In terms of serious complaints about the M4, that’s about it, though the car is not entirely without quirks.  Take the artificial soundtrack piped into the cabin, for example, whereby a recording of the outside engine note is rev-matched and amplified through the sound system to compensate for the car’s overall abundant sound dampening.  Is it noticeable?  Yes.  Is it bothersome?  No, though I wish there was a switch to disable the system on demand.  And if you'll allow me to nitpick: There’s no receptacle for the key fob, a design quirk that’s endemic to most all current automobiles.  (Hey auto manufacturers, not all of us want to carry stuff in our pockets all the time.)  But as I said:  Minor annoyances.

The M3 has traditionally been about as close to a true sports car as BMW gets.  These days, that honor realistically falls to the M2, a smaller, simpler, and less fussy driving machine to be sure.  The M4 has grown to be an even more immensely capable GT car, with the ability to cover great distances in massive comfort while swaddling the driver in style and technological sophistication, but also one that will hustle the owner around a track or country lane with astounding speed and stability and hooligan presence if desired.  It’s a refined car, but one with sharp teeth; a serious car that will very much bite if provoked.  And for my money (literally) it’s still at the top of the sports sedan class pyramid.  The M3 Coupe is dead; long live the M4.

Cadillac To Germany: “Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear”

I promised myself I would not begin any review of a contemporary Cadillac by ladling out the tired tropes around the brand, the ones about funeral directors and suspensions tuned by Serta and a demographic defined by actuaries and the all-you-can-eat-buffet coupons that come with every vehicle purchase.  So I won’t.

I also promised myself that when I inevitably got around to writing about a vehicle from the company named for the French explorer who founded Detroit in 1701, Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, I would work in my list of the five greatest songs ever written with “Cadillac” in their titles: “Cadillac Ranch” by Bruce Springsteen; “Cadillac Assembly Line” by Albert King; “Voodoo Cadillac” by Southern Culture on the Skids; “Long White Cadillac” by The Blasters; and my personal favorite, “Brand New Cadillac” by The Clash.  Your playlist can thank me later.

What I didn’t promise myself was to fully set aside my bias towards high-horsepower German cars, because bias is a funny thing.  You see, I’m the proud owner of a long string of Audi and BMW burners and subconsciously wear the subtle smirk of arrogance admittedly (and sadly) endemic to drivers of those brands.  I'm not proud of this, you understand, but it is what it is.  I've been known to raise an eyebrow and chuckle when I see an Infiniti.  When I talk to Lexus drivers, I generally say stuff like “Man, really nice car.  No, really.”  But Cadillacs?  Um, no.

But it’s impossible to ignore what GM has been doing with the brand over the last decade, to not only bring it back to respectability but make it a legit competitor to the Teutonic marques, and the thundering sound of the racing CTS-V.R racecars ripping up the pavement (and claiming victory after victory) over the past few years in the Pirelli World Challenge series certainly got my notice.  Cadillac seems to have cooked up some sort of secret sauce.

My personal history with Cadillac did not begin auspiciously.  To wit:  The first Cadillac I ever drove was a Cimarron. Let that sink in for a moment. A Cimarron.  This did not endear me to Cadillacs.  (Contrast this with how my personal history began with BMWs, when my oldest brother picked me up from high school one day in his new 1980 318i, blasting Van Halen’s “Running with The Devil” on the Blaupunkt.  I was smitten.)

The second Cadillac I ever drove was the 2016 ATS-V you see here.  It’s about as different and far removed from the Cimarron as Screaming Eagle is from brown-bag malt liquor.

(Thanks to the fine folks at Van Cadillac in Kansas City, Missouri, for the extended test drive.)

Cadillac’s new design direction first rolled out to the world with the CLR in 2003, a low-volume and expensive roadster based on the Chevrolet Corvette’s platform that arrived on the scene with a power-folding aluminum hardtop, Cadillac’s 4.6-liter Northstar engine tuned for 320-hp, and enough sharp design angles to open an Office Depot’s worth of envelopes.  It was a looker, and most importantly looked like no other prior Cadillac.  A line in the sand if you will.  The XLR ushered in what I call Cadillac’s “metallic origami” design vocabulary and to its credit they’ve stuck with and refined that design language over the past decade-plus.

The ATS-V is the latest model to embrace the look, and the current generation of Cadillacs all feature sharp creases and angles in a way that imparts an unmistakable familial resemblance: From the hulking Escalade hip-hop bus; to the regal CT6 full-sized sedan; to the insane CTS-V rocketship (and big brother to the ATS-V); to the butch XT5 and SRX crossovers found at Target shopping centers everywhere. I’m a big fan of the overall family of designs.  The vocabulary is all sharp edges and points and lines, which nicely plays off the updated Cadillac brand emblem.  Dreamy Wife, always a harsh critic, was a little less convinced at the ATS-V’s front-end design.  “Whoa, it’s pretty grilly.”   Thus beauty proves itself again to be in the eye of the beholder.

The ATS-V.R looks and sounds the part. (Image: Cadillac)

 The ATS-V is the hopped-up version of the ATS, and like it’s less potent sibling is available in both sedan and coupe form.  (The latter model is the format on which the Pratt & Miller-prepared ATS-V.R race car is based.)  The car I drove was painted a deep Black Raven finish, with the interior done up in Jet Black.  It was a serious and austere combination, intermixed with carbon fiber bits and black Alcantara complimenting the beautifully finished leather and quality-touch plastics.  One interior knock are the various small but noticeable strips of chrome adornment that harken back to a cheesier time in Cadillac’s history.  Why all American cars still insist on random bits of chrome escapes me, and if there was some sort of “black out” package available for this car I’d jump on it quickly.  No, I'm not a huge fan of chrome on modern cars.

The quality of the materials and assembly will be a surprise to anyone who hasn’t sampled GM’s finest in a few years.  Fit-and-finish were superb, leather surfaces were beautifully stitched, and plastic surfaces were springy (and expensive-feeling) to the touch.  I’d go so far as to call the quality virtually Japanese; this Caddy was every bit as lovely as the last Lexus I was in.  Nice stuff, and absolutely worthy of a car in this price-point (as tested: $70,965).

Seats well worth the $2300 price of admission.

My car was also outfitted with the optional RECARO performance seats and for $2300 I can’t recommend them enough.  They managed the difficult balance of being both supportive and comfortable, with electric adjustability that let me easily find a perfect fit.  They’re stunners to boot, gripped well under all my hooligan maneuvers, and had none of the overly rigid aspects of similar seats installed in German competitors.  They may be the best seats of any car I’ve been in ages.  Goldilocks seats:  They’re just right.

I can’t say the same about Cadillac’s CUE (“Cadillac User Experience") system and its touch-screen display.  To the good, the display is bright and brilliant and attractive, and the user interface is fairly intuitive and responsive.  To the bad, I’m just not a fan of the button-less control systems found in several manufacturers' products of late.  Regardless of responsiveness, stabbing at a screen while on the move is never as intuitive or fluid as turning a knob, and having to slide your finger along a slider bar to adjust the volume of the stereo while underway is always an exercise in frustration.  (And don’t get me started on the inevitable and ubiquitous fingerprints.)  Like all user interfaces, I’m sure competence comes with repetition, but in my time with the car I didn’t get comfortable interacting with either CUE or the HVAC system, which also relies on sliding and pressing small spots of shiny black plastic located above shiny chrome (more chrome!) separators on the plastic (and plastic-looking) piano-black main panel (which was the only quality letdown in the entire interior).  CUE looks and works better than the system on modern Jaguars (like the F-Type R with which I recently spent a week) but it’s still not as useful as the wrist-and-finger twist controllers found on other cars in this segment.  For what it’s worth, the Bose audio system sounded spectacular.

Another spectacular sound arrived when I pressed the Start/Stop button.  The ATS-V starts with a bark, then immediately settles down into a purposeful rumble.  Thankfully, Cadillac’s engineers decided to omit most of the “hey, look at me!” startup theatrics currently in vogue with so many performance GTs and sedans (I’m talking to you, BMW), which are fun for the first few times then become a source of awkwardness and social embarrassment thereafter.

Exhaust tuning is no mean feat in a car with this much juice.  The ATS-V has muscle-sedan power in spades, with its 3.6-liter, twin-turbo V6 that makes 464-hp and 445-lb/ft of torque.  It’s sledgehammer fast, exceedingly linear, with little perceptible forced-induction lag below 2000rpm and none above.  Off the line, the car plants and just goes and goes, those lovely RECAROs gripping and supporting while the car does it’s best to push you into the rear seats, a great roaring, ripping sound pulsing while the tachometer in the Heads-Up Display spins easily towards the 7000rpm redline. Maximum power is made at 5850rpm so anything north of that is just making noise, but what a glorious noise it is, with none of the piped-in falseness so annoyingly favored by German engineers.  The ATS-V makes it to 60mph in only 3.8 seconds; it’s quick.  But it doesn’t feel that quick

I attribute that to the car’s Achilles' Heel, it’s transmission.   True auto-boxes rarely have the same sense of immediacy and snap as the best of current-generation dual-clutch transmissions, but some (like the aforementioned Jaguar) do a yeoman’s job of tuning responsiveness and aggression into a reasonable facsimile.  Not so the ATS-V’s 8-speed automatic, which always felt a step behind the eager powerplant, regardless of which set-up program the car was in.  Even Track mode, which firmed up all other dampers nicely, delivered muted, behind-the-curve shifts.  At one point, I got frustrated enough at my paddle-commands being lazily executed that I put the car in Drive, thinking the Sport- or Track programs would hold revs and downshift aggressively.  Not so.  It’s almost like Cadillac is begging buyers in this segment to choose the optional 6-speed manual while Caddy works on cutting a deal with ZF for the latest dual-clutch model to install.  The 8-speed automatic is not this car’s friend.

Red Brembo calipers don't just look pretty; stopping power is amazing.

The suspension, though, is more than up to the challenge of reigning in the motor’s grunt.  With struts in the front and a lovely multi-link setup in the rear, the car’s handling is great, with reasonable feedback in all three program settings. Sport is the mode to leave it in, as there’s not much difference in tactile feel between Sport and Track, and Track is more heavily weighted all around than is comfy on anything but perfect roads.  The car is beautifully balanced and weighted and turns in and bites with confidence, the electrical nannies allowing a fair amount of rear-wheel slip before asserting themselves (and this car has more than enough juice to light up its rear tires at virtually any point if you can convince the transmission to help a brother out).  While this is certainly no Lotus, the trick magnetic dampers nicely mask the car's rather chunky 3812-lb curb weight.

And the brakes are more than up to the job, the red Brembo’s ratcheting the car down from, er, extra-legal speeds with ease and balance and utter confidence.  They’re great.  Overall the ATS-V’s suspension is tuned to true GT-car standards, and doesn’t feel the need to assert itself as a pure teeth-jarring track weapon like some of its German competitors.  It's a performance car that's both easy to live with and enjoy every day.

So how to sum up the ATS-V?  I’ll admit to wanting to like this car; the Germans badly need some new competition, and the marketplace needs some additional variety.  Plus I'm the sentimental sort and who doesn't love the thought of a Cadillac?  On the plus side, the ATS-V has a superb engine, great suspension tuning, distinctive looks, and fabulous seats.  It’s even priced as somewhat of a bargain in this class.  On the negative side, it’s a car let down by an overmatched transmission and a frustrating suite of on-board electronics, as well as some reminders of parts-bin cost-cutting (if those turn signal stalks aren’t shared with a Chevy Cruze, they could be).

In the end, the ATS-V is a really good car; full stop.  It's not quite yet a C43 Coupe or M4 but that's okay.  All due credit to Cadillac for building a legitimate competitor to the field of BMW M, Mercedes AMG, Lexus F, Audi S and RS, and Jaguar R cars.  (And let’s welcome Alfa Romeo to the party with its upcoming Giulia Quadrifoglio.)  Those marques’ performance reputations have been built over years and generations of vehicles, proving themselves in the marketplace and racetracks of the world with decades of engineering experimentation and brand-building behind them.  Cadillac comes to the party with a shallower pool of performance history, and it’ll take several generations of development to gain both true credibility and market share.  I applaud the effort and commend them on the obvious quality steps they’ve taken with the ATS-V.  For anyone wanting to sample the pinnacle of refined American GT-car engineering, your Cadillac dealer is the place to start.  I can’t wait to see what the future holds for the ATS-V.  Now, about those chrome strips and touch-screen fingerprint smudges…