STILL GOT IT

The M2 is back, packing all the best bits from the latest M3/M4 into a compact, rear-drive form, and it's every bit as good to drive as that sounds

- JAMES TAYLOR

IT'S A WICKED COMPOUND BUMP IN THE ROAD, like a booby trap laid by a performance car poacher. One steep up-ramp ridge, sump gouge marks at its base; then a second, surprise kicker concealed from view just after. Fading tyre marks trace their way to a twisted stretch of Armco, suggesting someone's come a cropper not so long ago. The M2 shrugs it off with ease. One controlled movement through the suspension, no aftershocks through the body. Stable, composed. Thank you, next.

We're in Arizona, on a fairytale canyon road that dips, dives and toboggan-turns its way across the flanks of Woodchute Mountain. The M2's relishing it. Good news, eh? Because as the M division enters its 51st (official) year, this is one of the last rear-wheel-driven, manual-gearboxed cars it will ever build. And certainly the last new model powered by combustion alone. So it would be a shame if it was a duffer.

The source material means that was never likely: the new M2 is built on a shortened variation of the 3- and 4-series platform, with the same track width and suspension architecture as the M3 and M4 and the same powertrain, built around the strapping 3-litre twin-turbo straight-six. In the M3 and M4 Competition it turns out 503bhp and 479lb ft, in the M2 a not-exactly-paltry 454bhp and 406lb ft. An eight-speed auto is standard fit, while a six-speed manual is still, happily, an option in the UK (£545).