BMW M2 - long-term review

There was a bit of brouhaha when rumours trickled out of Germany in the summer of 2022 than the new BMW M2 was going to be bigger and heavier than the old one. Obviously that’s the usual trend for cars these days – everything piles on the pounds with every generation – but because the baby M car was being shifted from a 1 Series to a 3 Series platform, the flab gain was going to be a big one.

And because it’s a bigger car, and looks so slabby and blocky, it somehow manages to ‘look' heavy. Like an anvil. Or an elephant.

BMW claims the new M2, fitted with the automatic gearbox, weighs 1,725 kilos. The claimed eight of the old M2 Competition with the seven-speed DCT gearbox was 1,575kg, so that’s a 200kg leap. Yowch.

But car companies have a habit of ‘marking their own homework’ when it comes to weight-watching. So we devised a little lie-detector session, and weighed the Top Gear Garage M2, with three-quarters of a tank on board.

And I promise that the Princess of Wales hasn’t fiddled with the photos in any way shape or form. Yep, it read exactly, bang on, to the kilogram, what BMW claims. 1,725kg. We double-checked. Twice.

Fair play to BMW for not massaging the numbers, then. But the more relevant question is this: does the M2 ‘feel’ too heavy on the road?

I’d have to say, after several months living together: no. The weight gain is something I’ve ceased to be bothered about. Is the car fast enough? Yes. Agile? In a burlier way than the old car, but its spread of all-round ability makes up for that. I’ve never had any sense of the brakes running out of grab during a spirited drive, and the fuel economy is really on the climb since the engine sang past 5,000 miles.

The other day, I saw 38mpg on a run to the Top Gear office. And bettered it on the way back home – 38.4mpg was indicated. I’m regularly achieving 350 miles on a tank of super-unleaded.

So, if the weight hasn’t neutered the handling, killed the pace, or worn out the brakes and tyres… and it’s sipping fuel… I’d have to admit that no, the portliness of the BMW M2 isn’t an issue. I dislike the idea of it, but can’t fault the reality.