COMPARE & CONTRAST
The BMW M8 and X5 M make for a compelling two-car garage, writes
The combination of dusty pink and sea green helps make this bathroom vanity and storage unit a stylish exercise in retro chic. Combine the colours with a painterly terrazzo countertop and oversized tiles, as well as the lesson in geometry created via the shapely oval of the unit itself and the perfectly round sinks (from Studio 19, studio19.co), and you’ve got a very modern lesson in why more really can be lovely.
TIP The multi-dimensional blend of textures, materials and colours in this bathroom is bold and fearless — and an element that adds yet more appealing tactility to the space is the white wall tiles, handmade by bespoke tile manufacturers Akashic Tiles (akashictiles.co.za).
Social media comments can quickly deflate the hype a brand is trying to create. Hot and unfiltered vitriol from keyboard commentators will cut through flowery marketing prose like a jagged knife. BMW tried to use the hate to its advantage recently, featuring quips made about its iX sport-utility vehicle in the advertising campaign for the model. They embraced the backlash at the odd styling of the car.
But it seemed just a bit unconvincing — like a tear-filled “sticks and stones may break my bones” response to the school bully. Truth is, there are many fans who believe the brand has made a serious misstep, with strange aesthetics, goofy grilles, the shunning of rear-wheel drive and other tradition-defying moves. But when it stays faithful to certain hallmarks, the results are undeniably great. Examples? The pair of fire-breathing, M-badged brutes I had on test for 48 hours recently.
First up was the sleek M8 Competition Gran Coupé, followed by the brutish X5 M Competition. Both are powered by the same 4.4-litre, twinturbocharged
V8 engine, rendering frightful performance in either application, outputting 460kW and 750Nm.
It goes without saying that the groundhugging four-door counterpart is the more focused of the duo, with its lower centre of gravity. And from a visual perspective, there’s little wrong with its slinky shape.
Our test car wore black paint with matching black wheels — the kind of colour scheme a successful peddler of lockdown contraband would pick. There’s certainly space for plenty of merchandise — and the family labrador — in the X5 M. Better strap the pooch in, with that earth-shifting 0-100km/h sprint time of 3.8 seconds.
Both are obviously fast and even the larger sibling handles fairly well despite the clear limitations of size, weight and height. They’re endowed with all the connected technologies any discerning consumer in the premium market wants in 2021. But there’s a downside. The cars are noticeably quieter than their predecessors. Aside from some engineered barks, burps, snorts and pops on upshift and downshift, the actual engine note of the V8 has been muzzled ruthlessly. And that’s to do with the increasing strictness of European emissions requirements.
It’s a small point — because performance cars of the near-future are not going to be like the ripping, snorting, wake-theneighbours vehicles we once knew.
● Prices: X5 M: From R2.7m; M8 Gran Coupé: From R3.4m