FINE DRIVING: 2016 BMW M6
Big Bimmer offers more speed than we’ll ever need
Imagine that Alexander Ovechkin was seconded into playing in your weekend shinny game. Because this would be a little good-natured publicity for some NHL-affiliated charity or another, he would be admonished not to score any goals or crunch anyone into the boards.
Imagine the spirit-sapping frustration of bringing the fastest, hardest man on skates and not being able to use any of it. That’s what it’s like to drive a BMW M6 at our speed limits. Seriously, the best thing about BMW engineers is their ability to make fast seem slow. It is also, for those of us stuck on police-enforced Canadian roads, the worst thing about BMW engineering.
Compared with lesser cars, going 100 km/h in any 6 Series — let alone the M6 — feels like you are going 60. The 120 km/h we cruise at provides precious little solace. If cars had souls, an M6 limited to 100 km/h would petition for voluntary euthanasia.
Indeed, it’s only at 140 km/h or so that the M6 starts to perk up. So much more comfortable does an M6 feel at a buck-forty than at 100 km/h that I had to set BMW’s handy-dandy “speed alert” chime, lest I inadvertently meander into the dreaded 50+ km/h-over-the-limit zone, where one doesn’t Pass Go, but heads directly to jail.
All this speed disguising has little to do with the monstertorqued V8 under the hood. Tap into its twin turbochargers and suddenly all the speed the M6 can generate seems very real. In just a hair over four seconds, 100 km/h swings onto the speedometer, followed by that licencekilling 150 just an eyeblink later. Were it not for an electronic speed limiter keeping things to a supposedly tame 250 km/h, I’m pretty sure the big M6 would also touch 300 km/h.
It’s the chassis that warps the sensation of speed. Time seems to slow down behind the wheel of an M6. Without that aforementioned chime, the big Bimmers’ Rock of Gibraltar stability would have had me sailing past 150 km/h every time I ventured onto the highway.
Compliments aside, the M6 is not perfect. It is a heavy beast, as are all big BMWs built on the 5 Series platform. It weighs in at a scale-busting 1,914 kilograms. That’s 4,210 pounds of groundhugging weight. Though it hardly diminishes the M6 on the highways, it does limit its track abilities, which are supposedly so much part of the M Division’s raison d’être. But this is what makes the M6 Gran Coupe four- door a much better deal. Only 80 kg heavier, it gains two decent rear seats and the ingress/egress to make them useful. Even BMW concedes it’s just as speedy as the two-door coupe, and since most of the equipment — brakes, tires and suspension — are identical, it handles almost as well.
The four- door M6 version is only $4,000 more than the $125,000 BMW asks for the M6 Coupe. In other words, there’s no downside to Gran Coupe ownership.
Even its silhouette is just as comely as the two-door version.
The same applies to the lesser 6 Series models as well. A 650i Gran Coupe will do everything a two-door 650i will. Both are now available only as xDrive models (the M6 is, of course, exclusively rear-drive) and their pricing is only $1,500 apart. Additionally, the Gran Coupe is available as an $89,900 640i xDrive, powered by BMW’s ubiquitous 3.0-litre turbocharged in-line six. Its 315 hp would seem diminished compared with the M6’s 560 and the 650’s 445, but its 330 pound-feet of torque moves it along quite nicely indeed.
What’s the use of being able to cruise unperturbed at 200 km/h when our speed limits are half (or less) than that? Is that why so many manufacturers renowned for their superior road holding — Audi and Mercedes-Benz, as well as BMW — are focusing so much of their engineering might on incar infotainment systems? The M6 is certainly testament to the fact we have all the road-going abilities that most of us will ever need.