BMW’s baby ‘bahn-stormer for NZ

Last of the line M240i xDrive delivers stomping six-cylinder and all-wheel-drive

ONE step down from next year’s new M2 Competition, also potentially a realistic alternate if a M3/M4 Competition are out of financial reach – and, lastly, a foil to the Mercedes-AMG A45 and Audi RS3.

That’s quite a lot of responsibility set to be carried by the M240i xDrive, the flagship (for now) and sole version from BMW’s mainstream 2-Series family that the national distributor intends to have on sale in New Zealand by year-end.

A pricing, spec and arrival announcement from BMW NZ today says the model will cost $104,900 before on-roads before considering the sole option, a tasty $3650 Innovations Package.

It delivers with a 3.0-litre six-cylinder petrol packing 285kW/500Nm, assuring ability to nail the legal highway limit from a standing start in 4.3 seconds, with this wallop laying down via an eight-speed auto and then through all four wheels; a first for the type. Quite the ticket, at least until the M2 arrives a circa 300kW version of the 3.0-litre six-cylinder petrol engine shared with the M3 and M4.

BMW has made clear that, even though it’s all-wheel-drive, operators can still anticipate a rear-wheel bias.

Also engendering good dynamic vibe is that second generation line has a platform rated as being 12 percent more torsionally rigid than the last.

While this is the first of the new model it will also have significance as the last in a long line of small, front-engine coupes from BMW.

After this current generation of 2 Series, small BMW coupes will be electric.

Another compulsion to buy in is the achieve the car in the rather intriguing hero colour as seen in the BMW-supplied pictures. What appears to be a kind of metallic purple is referred to officially as Thundernight Metallic.

If that’s not extrovert, then perhaps you could find someone to commission the car in the treatment it received when build began. The change of manufacturing point from Germany to Mexico was celebrated recently with right-hand-drive M240i xDrive being given the full ‘art car’ treatment.

Joining forces with a local plastic artist, Bosco, BMW employees Luis Esquivel and David Fernandes from the Mexico plant’s paint shop applied a colourful livery that fuses the Mexican and German flags to signal the connection between where the car is made and where it was developed.

No fewer than eight different colours were used, requiring 6.1 litres of paint and 2.5 litres of clear coat. Some of the colours have five layers of paint, with BMW mentioning the entire paint was applied manually. The workers applied the paint colour by colour and had to wait for the paint to dry off half an hour between each coat.

It was a time-consuming process as three weeks were needed to apply the paint, another two for the clear coat, and two more to polish the body and iron out any imperfections. BMW admits it wasn't an easy task because the 2 Series Coupe is "full of curves" and that required a lot of attention to detail.