Nature, nurture and the 911
It’s an assumption that the car you’re after is the lighter, purer and more focused one. Sportier doesn’t always mean better. And if it’s a gran turismo you’re after, the BMW 8-series (and particularly the 840d and M850i) has to be on your shortlist. (In a four-way test of such cars, including the DB11, Continental GT and Lexus LC, we crowned the M850i king.)
But the problem with the M8 Competition is the very real margin of difference between the car your heart yearns for it to be and the car that it is. It is not a 21st century 3.0 CSL; rasping, raw, lightweight, delicate and keen on smearing about the place in a dance of endless steady-state oversteer. For so many reasons, from economies of scale to safety regulations, it could never be that car. But it’d be wrong to dismiss the BMW as overweight, inert and uninterested. Peel back the layers, give the car licence to be the machine it’s capable of being (via the drive mode settings) and engage your brain: now the M8 has 24/7 entertainment plastered across its extra-wide kidney grille.
But like the hot 2002s, various M3s and the last-gen M4 before it, the
M8 Competition is an awesome machine lovingly spun from a mainstream model. It ain’t the dyed-in-the-wool sports car it’d take to stand up to, let alone beat, this 911 Turbo. Despite its badge, its connotations and all those old F1 M Power and Schnitzer E30 M3 posters, the M8’s happiest beating the train and the plane from one end of the country to the other, its pliant ride, awesome seats, brilliant infotainment and effortless, truly wicked turn of speed destroying distance.
If the 911 Turbo had evolved as we expected it to – more of everything: weight, power, technology, comfort – then this could have been a closerun thing. But instead Porsche – mindful perhaps that in the face of landslide SUV sales and now rapid electrification, the 911 flame must burn brighter than ever – has seized upon the 992-generation platform as its moment to set the Turbo free of its GT shackles. Yes, it’s expensive. Yes, it’s practical for a sports car but it is not, in the final analysis, practical. And yes, the opportunities to use what it has over a nice 911 Carrera (nearly half the price…) won’t be myriad. But this Turbo S is a phenomenal benchmark both for the 911 and the modern sports car.