The 2014 BMW M6 Gran Coupe is the new flagship car from the high-performance division of the world’s most performance-oriented luxury brand. It gets 560 hp with a maximum of 500 lb-ft of torque, and is calibrated tighter than a well-hitched noose. To say the least, it performs.
Albert Biermann, the chief engineer of the M Brand, showed off his masterpiece to a group of us last week in Austin, Texas, lovingly presenting his cross-bank exhaust manifold with reverse airflow as though it were his child graduated from Germany’s top university with highest honors. The car has a “wide span of engine performance,” he said, and could be pushed to its limits without testing the driver’s sanity.
“A lot of engines,” he said, “when they get to this point, they run out of talent, let us say. This one does not.”
Most importantly, Biermann said, this car can relax under pressure. There’s a water-air cooling system connected to the turbocharger that keeps the charged air temperature down. This creates a lot of backup pressure, he said, so the car can really go hard even when the driving situation grows dire. BMW engineered the Gran Coupe to run steep hills at high altitudes, so as not to alienate potential customers in the Rocky Mountains. He was really proud of his cooling system. “These are really upper Bavarian hoses,” he said. “Lower Bavaria has nothing to do with these hoses.”
Well, we didn’t test-drive the M6 Gran Coupe anywhere near Bavaria, upper or lower, but BMW did allow us to take the car to the Circuit Of The Americas just outside of Austin, an increasingly popular spot for rich drivers who want to push their cars past sane limits. Quickly, the Gran Coupe showed that a “wide span of engine performance” is an understatement. It approached perfection in every aspect.
First prize has to go to the car’s carbon-ceramic braking system, the first time an M product has ever used this technology. A lot of cars can hit triple-digits on COTA’s insane back straightaway, but very few can do that alongside perfectly responsive, precise brakes that require barely a tap to do your bidding. It was remarkable how well the brakes interacted with the six-speed automatic transmission, which opened up on turn-outs and tightened on turn-ins with incredible intuition.
This car has a rear-wheel drive system that’s almost impossibly sophisticated and intuitive, fine-tuned with the transmission to the point where it will up- and down-shift for you at the exact right moments. And it’s totally necessary. As Biermann said, “you have to find something to deal with the 560 horses.”
Even more than most cars at this level – not that there are many — the Gran Coupe has been built for the track-driving experience. It gets even more sophisticated when you put it in “M Dynamic” mode, which partially turns off traction control. There were a half-dozen totally necessary driving instructors on hand at COTA to help us deal with the Gran Coupe’s horses. They suggested that M Dynamic gives the driver a little more freedom coming out of a corner.
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