Take 2

BMW’s smallest M-car has been extensively reworked, but is it enough to elevate the all-new M2 Competition to the top of the class?

- Sirish Chandran

YOU WILL OBVIOUSLY HAVE YOUR PERSONAL favourite, as do I, but it’s impossible to say which – Mercedes AMG or BMW M – is the more iconic go-faster brand. Both were born in the crucible of motorsport; AMG set up independently, M Division always in-house, but both had one goal – to win races. Their very first cars, AMG’s 300 SEL Red Sow and M’s 3.0 CSL Batmobile, have been a permanent fixture across the t-shirts of the faithful; their homologation specials, Merc’s CLK GTR and BMW’s M1, have been the wildest cars from a mainstream manufacturer; and their engines have gone down in history, notably Merc’s vast 7.3 V12 that still powers Paganis and BMW Motorsport’s 6.1 V12 in the back of the McLaren F1 that many have rated as the finest engine ever to be made.

Today both make excruciatingly fast cars and SUVs, and both shamelessly flog the appeal of the go-faster brand by tacking badges on to body kits for little diesel cars and SUVs. Yet in India it is AMG that rules the roost. The timeless appeal of the G 63, deft product planning in the form of the (affordable) 43-series, and a commitment to the brand in the form of AMG Performance Centres has seen Mercedes-Benz rule the roost. But this is the car that could change the game for BMW.

Meet the car I have no hesitation in labelling the best M car on sale today.