300-mile test: BMW M8
Is the new flagship M car a languid Grand Tourer, a lithe super-coupe or an M5 in an expensive sports jacket? Hard miles on road and track in the M8 to find out
In 4WD mode, the front tyres dig their fingernails in and haul you down the next straight
Front straight, Portimao’s Autódromo do Algarve circuit, Portugal. We’re at full tilt in the new BMW M8 Coupe, and that’s a lot of tilt: the twin-turbo V8 is punching hard, deploying all of its 616bhp in an apparently ceaseless torrent of acceleration. The first corner, a come-and-have-a-go right-hander that’s tighter than it looks, is approaching on fast-forward, and the braking zone’s downhill. Gulp. But the brakes bite and the M8 pulls up as if someone’s hit the universe’s pause button.
It really shouldn’t be possible for a car weighing 1.9 tonnes or thereabouts to stop this smartly. But the M8 does. Just as it possesses a few other qualities that don’t entirely make sense.
It’s the final day of the BMW M8’s international press launch, and we’re going to play hooky and sneak off for an extended drive. But first, one more lap.
Clambering aboard the M8 Coupe in the Portimao pitlane, you breathe in heady lungfuls of 3D-quilted leather trim. Compared with the regular 8-series there’s an extra smattering of carbonfibre and some M-specific driving mode controls (more on which in a bit), but this isn’t a racy sports car cabin. BMW describes the M8 as M division’s first foray into the luxury sector, and whether in two-door Coupe or Convertible form (or upcoming four-door M8 Gran Coupe guise), it’s positioned very much as an upmarket grand tourer. Yet one that still possesses M-worthy dynamic chops, hence the use of Portimao.
Compared with the regular 8-series, the body’s already broad wheelarches have swollen further (with a slightly ungainly lip on the rear arch for homologation) to accommodate suspension adopted wholesale from the M5 Competition. That’s stretched across even wider tracks (measuring more than 1.6 metres at the front, and a touch wider still at the rear), and sunk around 10mm lower. The wheelbase is shorter than the M5’s by 155mm, and the rear-wheel steering of lesser 8-series is gone.
This particular version is the bill-topping M8 Competition, its 4.4-litre V8 offering the same 616bhp and 553lb ft as the BMW M5 Competition. A 592bhp standard M8 will be offered in some markets but only the Competition comes to the UK. At £123,435, it represents a stiff £23k premium over the 523bhp M850i.
The all-wheel-drive system, too, is the same as the M5’s, including its switchable 2WD mode to make the M8 entirely rear-wheel drive should the mood take you. Even in its default 4WD mode, it’s heavily rear-biased, only bringing the front wheels into play when needed. Like the M8’s 2+2 seating layout, it’s best thought of as a 2WD+2 than a 4x4.
We start in 4WD Sport mode, a halfway house that makes the M8 almost entirely rear-biased. So readily available is its torque (with maximum twist on call from only 1800rpm), modest powerslides are there for the taking and so intuitive is its long-ish wheelbase and fast-racked steering combo that you’re quickly comfortable doing so. And in straight-bat 4WD mode, you feel the front tyres digging their fingernails into the tarmac and hauling you down the next straight.
All cars at the press launch are fitted with the optional
carbon-ceramic brakes, with front discs measuring a giant 400mm – hence the immense stopping power mentioned earlier – and with a brake-by-wire system, the self-adjusting brake bite-point theoretically doesn’t change and fade doesn’t set in, even at high temperatures. They certainly hold out during our admittedly brief track session, although you do get the feeling the M8 has an appetite for tyres, both front (due to the weight) and rear (due to the 553lb ft). There’s no getting away from the sense that this is a heavy car (if not by GT standards, admittedly), and while it’s a very fine-handling machine, you’re impressed by what it can do in spite of its heft, rather than blown away full-stop.
So, the track proves the M8 has real dynamic substance and sucker-punch pace, and it feels far more at home there than it has any right to. But it doesn’t quite enthral as purer sports cars do, and I’m not convinced the £28k-cheaper M5 Competition wouldn’t be very nearly as much fun – perhaps even more so. And few customers are likely to take their £123k luxury car on track, after all. Maybe, since it was conceived as a GT, the M8 will shine on the road.
With that in mind, it’s the convertible M8 we transfer into for the road leg. It’s around £7k pricier and more than 100kg heavier than the Coupe but M’s engineers say there’s far less reduction in stiffness than most convertibles, partly thanks to the ‘carbon core’ composite transmission tunnel. But as we head away from the circuit and onto the dusty asphalt roads that snake away from neighbouring Faro, it does feel a fraction more numb than the M8 Coupe, if far more composed than most droptops.
Portimao has a history of sardine canning but the convertible M8 isn’t a tin-top. It uses a fabric roof, for refinement and luggage space, which is unchanged at 350 litres roof up or down (the coupe holds 420 litres). Roof-up, refinement is fine, and top-down at speed it’s a commendably un-blustery place to be.
Luxe golf courses and hotels sit cheek by jowl here with graffiti-daubed, down-at-heel purlieus, and it feels almost gauche to drive the conspicuously opulent M8 Convertible through them. Into the hills beyond, where the landscape is a mix of arid scrub and sun-scorched soil. Here the road springs constant ambushes, with unsighted potholes and subsided sections that suddenly drop away like an inverted game of whack-a-mole. The M8’s adaptive dampers do a nice job here, absorbing the most surprising bumps while keeping the front splitter scufffree. Like most modern M cars, there are three suspension drive modes, from Comfort through Sport to Sport Plus. Though firmer, the latter two are in some ways the most comfortable, as they check body movement more swiftly. Unlike some previous M cars there isn’t a conglomerate of individual switches for the various modes, instead streamlining to a main button on the centre console which unlocks further configuration options within the touchscreen. But man, there are a lot of configurations to choose from, like trying to crack some kind of Ultimate Driving Machine combination code. Drivetrain, dampers, steering weight, gearchange… At first I do what I usually do when faced with a multiple-choice questionnaire, and pick all the middle options. But with exploration, they all play a valid part in adapting the car’s character between cruiser and bruiser, and you can store your favourite combos in the M1 and M2 shortcut buttons on the wheel.
There’s also, innovatively, a setting for brake pedal response. Because the servo is integrated with the brake control unit, you can opt for either a Comfort setting (a typical light-pressure road set-up) or a Sport setting, which demands a little more force on the pedal, the better for fast road and circuit driving. It’s not for everyone, but on these give-and-take roads it’s an antidote to the modern trend for trigger-happy brakes.
There are plenty of less modern cars here, the warm Portuguese climate preserving models that are now a rarity in the UK, and we find ourselves rubbernecking Volvo 340s and Opel Novas as much as their occupants do our big M8. It certainly feels big when we venture into the town of Silves, a maze of
There are so many modes to choose from, like trying to crack an Ultimate Driving Machine combination code
narrow cobbled streets arranged in a one-way system that feels like navigating one of Escher’s staircase drawings. The best part of 4.9m long and 1.9m wide but with a relatively low, sporty driving position, the M8’s bird’s-eye-view parking cameras become essential equipment in close-quarters urban combat.
By the time we’ve extricated ourselves we need to set spurs (and M modes) to reach the airport in time. Making haste in a 616bhp open-air GT car should be a drive to file in the memory banks but the M8 doesn’t entirely thrill me or get under my skin like certain Porsches (911, Panamera…) and AMGs.
Blame the numb steering, in part at least. Its variable-rate response means it feels keen and you never need much lock but its weighting is artificial, especially in Sport mode, and it isn’t brimming with feel (though with 275-wide front tyres, it would be unrealistic to expect the last word in feedback). Blame the engine, too; wondrous though its performance and throttle response are, it sounds more gruff and business-like than evocative. And though peak power doesn’t arrive until 6000rpm, with all that anytime torque on tap from low revs, it’s tempting to drive it like a diesel and sit in the middle of its powerband. In the M8 you’re also always aware of that hefty kerbweight through direction changes at S-bends and switchbacks, the physics working to drop progress into slow motion.
If this were an M5, I don’t think I’d nitpick to this extent; it’s a saloon, after all. But given that the M8 is designed and marketed with an extra dose of theatre, those are the values you judge it by. In fact, on the same roads, I suspect the M5 Competition might be more fun, than the M8 Convertible at least.
The M8 is a very talented car, no question, but feels like it’s trying to answer two questions at the same time. In its quest to be both a luxury flagship and a fast-lapper, it’s a car that’s not quite sure what it really wants to be.
The M8 is a very talented car. But it feels like it’s trying to answer two questions at once