Car and Driver has just announced their 2017 10Best Cars list and the M2/M240i has made the list!
Full writeup @ http://www.caranddriver.com/features…t-cars-feature
“This year, 10Best again proved that there are some nice cars to choose from if you’ve budgeted $40,000 to $50,000, but few are as entertaining as BMW’s top 2-series models, with their combination of humble size; pouncing, liquid thrust from the optional six pots; and piano-*wire tension to the controls. You can see why we picked the M235i last year, but the world keeps turning. The 2-series lineup gets new monikers: The 230i replaces the 228i as the base four-cylinder; the M235i becomes the M240i; and now there’s the juiced M2, basically an M240i with flares, chairs, tires, brakes, and a suspension tune, plus another 30 horsepower (though it can only match the M240i’s torque with a time-limited overboost function).”
“The M240i has a sporting suspension, but it won’t liberate any loose dentistry. The rigid M2 will, this extremist shaking our fillings over the rougher sections as the steering sniffed feverishly for apexes. The M2 prefers corners to straights the same way a German shepherd prefers pork chops to applesauce, but that’s part of its hyperactive charm. Cars like the M2 form the radioactive core of BMW’s performance credibility, and the M240i backs off just enough to please drivers who find it a little too hot at the center.”
“Thus, in our little Goldilocks scenario, in which all the chairs were tried, the adoration inevitably fell back on the BMW. Not the 3-series, which has grown too large and too mainstream to any *longer earn our passion, but the smaller 2-series, which is just under a foot shorter than an A4 and reminds us of E30s and E46s and the Way Things Used to Be. BMW is at heart a small-vehicle company, a course set in 1959 when Herbert Quandt saved the ailing maker of princely handmade bolides and diverted its resources into the 1961 1500, instantly creating the market for compact sports sedans.”