This top-spec high-performance M car is the best big BMW in an age—and perhaps the best new gran turismo money can buy
The BMW M8 Competition has big cajones
This version of BMW’s now-iconic 4.4-litre V8 pumps out 617 horses and 553 pound-feet of torque. BMW says it can, when you engage launch control and make use of the xDrive all-wheel-drive system, boogie to 100 kilometres an hour in 3.2 seconds. But — and this would seem a fairly big but — Car and Driver says it’s recorded a 2.5-second sprint to 60 miles per hour (96 km/h). In real-life, it feels much closer to the latter than the former. Count on sub-three-second leaps to 100 klicks, especially if you order the sticky Pirelli PZeros (an almost symmetrical combination of 275/35R20 up front and 285/35R20 rear).
In other words, anyone choosing Porsche’s 911 Turbo over the BMW — or even some recent supercars that end in an “I” — is going to be disappointed. The M8 Competition is a mighty beast.
It’s also fairly colourful, there being many delightful noises emanating from both the exhausts and the speakers in the cabin (yes, some of the internal-combusting is “amplified”). Despite what I expect will be numerous complaints of its “artificial” soundtrack, the big V8 sounds great. Yes, I’ll take a V12 every time, but good luck finding a naturally-aspirated version in a GT these days.
Complaints will also be levied at the eight-speed transmission for being automatic. Indeed, some of those complaints will be levied by some of my fellow Driving contributors. I don’t give a rat’s you-know-what. The problem with their “feeling engaged” worship of manual clutch and gated shifter is not only is the technology archaic and difficult to make manageable with torque-laden turbocharged engines, but they’re slower.
Automatics, including ZFs like in this Bimmer, have become so sophisticated with incredibly quick shift times, there really is no reason for a manual transmission in a car like this, other than nostalgia for a time that was not nearly as exalted as some choose to remember. Die-hard traditionalists might not like to hear this, but were Ferdinand Porsche still alive today, I’m pretty sure you would not be able to buy a 911 with a stick.
A miraculous combination of ride and handling
As brutally powerful as the big, huffing V8 is, it’s actually not the Competition’s strong point. Hell, it’s not even in the top three.
First and foremost amongst reasons to buy this particular version of the M8 is the handling. Read recent road tests of BMWs — including my own — and the constant lament is that Munich’s engineers lost their once-uncanny ability to make big cars handle small. Oh, it doesn’t help that some of the latest Bimmers — I’m looking at you, M5 — weigh nigh on two-and-a-half tons. Nonetheless, everything I’ve driven from Bayerische Motoren Werke of late — save perhaps the M2 and the very latest M4 CSL — felt like blunderbusses in a sniper competition, just unwieldly, imprecise, and not nearly suited to the task at hand as they once were.
But even that’s not the best thing about the M8. Even more amazing is that the racer-like stiff suspenders failed to turn the Competition into a bucking bronco. Indeed, like BMWs of old, the most amazing thing about this car is the combination of handling and ride. Put more directly, never have I driven a car with suspension this stiff that rode this well. That super-secret test track I mentioned? It’s as bumpy as a motocross track, with swells large enough to serve as minor ski jumps. The electronically-controlled dampers thought we were on a billiard-smooth piste somewhere in southern Spain.
Even more uncanny was running over the “Botts’ dots” — the pronounced reflective markers that California roads use for lane demarcations — and hearing the wheels judder, but not feeling anything through my butt. I fell in love with big BMWs back in the ‘90s specifically because of their ability to make big cars handle and ride better than anyone else. The M8 Competition is the first big BMW in a long time that makes me think the company hasn’t lost its touch. If you’re filthy rich and looking for justification to buy a BMW over a Porsche, this is it.
A few other things that lead to handling mischief. Like so many big BMWs these days, the M8 drives all four wheels. That said, toggle the right combination of buttons and you can send all 617 of those horsepower — and, more importantly, all 553 torques — rearward, turning the Competition into the most sumptuously-outfitted drift machine available. I was limited to city streets, CHiPs-patrolled highways, and tight side roads bordered by serious rock formations. In other words, I did not test its ability — or mine — to do a Ken Block impression. I’m not sure that is this BMW’s intended use, but I am assured it can turn into a serious smoke-show.
Anyone choosing Porsche’s 911 Turbo over the BMW is going to be disappointed—the M8 Competition is a mighty beast
And lastly, the M8 is one of the first cars to use a computer-controlled brake-by-wire system. In other words, the huge 400-millimetre front carbon-ceramic discs — and their six-piston calipers — are not directly connected hydraulically to the brake pedal. Instead, you’re essentially pushing against a pressure transducer which in turn tells a computer how much hydraulic pressure to apply to those beefy calipers.
I’ve read reports they lack feedback and that, since the pedal barely moves — again, the entire process is pressure-instigated — that the binders lack feedback. I call bullshit on this one. I had no such complaints. Maybe it’s because I’m used to superbike brakes, or have a little experience with race car systems — both of which have little pedal movement and respond solely based on how hard your squeezing — but the M8 had plenty of whoa! power and more than enough sensitivity to make them manageable. Not everything digital is bad!
Comfort compounded
If you’re pulling big “Gs” — and, as I said, this M8 can — the one prerequisite is seats that keep your butt firmly cocooned in place. Said cocooning usually involves specialized sports seats with maximal side bolstering and minimal cushioning. Often — that should be read “almost always” — they are not ‘gran-turismo’ comfortable. Either the padding is too firm, the adjustments not accommodating, or, as is most often the case, that side bolstering so necessary at a one-“G” apex is not nearly comfortable for a long haul down the super-slab.
Not BMW’s M Carbon buckets. I’m not sure if it will be universal, but the driver’s seat fit my five-foot-11 corpus — 46 chest, 33-inch waist — like a glove. The lower side bolstering is adjustable, so it was easy to find an optimal squeeze and, unlike too many of these “Recaros,” there’s lots of tilt and fore-aft range. These are, by far, the most comfortable full sports seats I’ve ever sat in, and they are, in fact, more accommodating than many a multi-adjustable seat found in luxury sedans.
Odds and sods
Along with comfy, fast, and agile, the M8 Competition is also a looker. Normally, I wouldn’t state this so definitively since I have what are most generously described as eclectic tastes — I think a Laverda RGS1000 the greatest expression of motorized design, and Isabella Rossellini the most beautiful movie actress of all time. So, the only reason I can state that appreciation of the big Bimmer’s attractiveness is because of how many of the local citizens — in a town where Italian supercars are a dime a dozen — tracked me down to tell me how good-looking my car was. And, judging by those same experts, its pastel Borusan Turkish Blue (a far tamer-sounding Riviera Blue in the Canadian order guide) was the one to have.
It’s also worth noting that this iteration of iDrive — it’s not the latest, but the previous generation’s — is the easiest of all to use. It’s easier to switch radio stations than on the current versions, yet is still lightning-fast to pair with cell phones. Its gesture control works well, though, for the life of me, I don’t see how rotating my finger repeatedly in front of the screen is any easier than just turning the volume knob a degree or two to reduce the decibel output.
And, while we are talking about such pedestrian attributes, understand that, while the trunk is amazingly spacious for such a sporty car — there’s enough golf-bag-swallowing space back there for a decidedly long weekend — it’s hard to believe that anyone over the age of four would actually attempt to sit in the rear seats. BMW’s front-seat adjustment motors are strong enough that I’d seriously worry for the health of any rear-seat passenger’s dorsal bones, should the driver decide they need more legroom.
But such attributes are table stakes in the luxury GT coupe segment, luxury, competence, and a certain practicality expected when you’re spending this much money — nigh on 200 large — on a car. Nope, the reason you pay those beaucoup bucks is to experience the optimum combination of short-term performance and long-term comfort. This the BMW M8 Competition does better than any gran turismo I have ever driven.
If you want the best GT I’ve tested, here is its exact spec:
The base price for a 2025 BMW M8 Competition is $160,550, to which were added $34,050 worth of options which included:
- Premium package (a $9,200 bundle that offers up a Bowers & Wilkins sound system, Driving Assistant Professional, Evasion Assistant, and Traffic Jam Assistant);
- BMW Laserlight Headlights (a fantastic buy even at $1,500);
- M Carbon Ceramic Brakes (expensive at $10,900, but you’ll need them at the track); and
- M Carbon seats (an absolute must-have, even at $6,500);
The only major option I wouldn’t bother with is the $5,400 M Carbon Exterior package, which doesn’t make the car go faster, ride better, or, for that matter, look appreciably more racy. But that would be how I’d price an M8 Competition if I were looking for the best gran turismo (a whole lotta) money can buy.
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