BMW M4 Convertible First Drive by Top Gear

Here’s an excerpt of the BMW M4 Convertible First Drive and review by Top Gear:

Surely an M car has to be brilliant at corners?

Well, it’s vastly grippy, and possessed of a quick-witted and confident front end. But it’s a bit snappy at the back. We found the same in an M4 Coupe on our Speed Week travels recently. If you have the space to do big oversteer, it’s good at it. But the zone where confident grip gives way to traction loss is a bit jittery and unpredictable. It gives the traction control quite a busy time of it.

Does the extra weight make much difference?

Naturally it marginally deprives you of acceleration, and costs fuel consumption, but you probably wouldn’t notice except if you’d stepped right out of the coupe. The weight bias is also some way rearward, so it doesn’t have the same balance on a racetrack. I didn’t put that to the test, and the car’s chief engineer said he doesn’t expect anyone will. Owners of M3s and M4 coupes might go on the odd track day, but not convertible buyers. So he said the M4 Convertible has been set up for a slightly softer road ride.

In that respect it’s surprisingly supple for a car of its cornering ability, though you can’t rely on the adaptive dampers to do enough adapting. If you want comfort you need to switch to ‘comfort’, but that mode allows too much vertical bounce when you’re clipping along,so then you have to switch to ‘sport’.

So all-in, does it add to the M4 experience or compromise it?

Both. If you think an M4 should be a hardcore warrior, you won’t like the Convertible’s extra weight and compromised performance.

On the other hand, you might think – and we do – that the new-generation turbo M car is a different proposition, a faster but less vivid device. In which case maybe Converting it, and adding an extra string to its bow, isn’t a bad idea.

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