The new limited-edition BMW M4’s silly name looks like a typo

What’s going on at BMW, exactly? The marque that gave the world the super-saloon has gone properly mad now. First the huge’n’hideous grilles of the 7 Series and X7, then the illuminated schnozz and Vantablack of that invisible X6… and now there’s this. 

It’s a special edition version of the soon-to-die BMW M4 Coupe. There are three versions, inspired by BMW’s exploits in the German DTM Touring car series. And they’re painted, as the colour-literate among you can see, in a rather fetching shade of Laguna Seca light blue, purpley Velvett Blue, or punchy Imola red. The colours of the famous M tricolour logo. 

We don’t mind that. We also don’t mind that BMW has merely garnished its 444bhp, twin-turbo straight-six powered super-coupe with a carbon roof featuring an inlayed pinstripe of the same M logo. And we have no problem with the multi-colour seats. Or the fact there will only be 750 of these celebratory editions made. That’s all A-OK.

However, we need to talk about the name. Because, officially, BMW is referring to this car as ‘the BMW M4 Coupe /// M Heritage Edition’. Yep, they’ve lobbed in a triplet of forward slashes like some typo in a search engine, because the ‘///’ is supposed to look like – you guessed it – the three M tricolour stripes.

Now listen, BMW. The cars are painted in M colours. The M colours are in the roof and on the seats and the gearlever. An M4 is not a subtle car. It’s got phat arches, makes a flat, gargley noise and when it’s wet, it will find seven different ways to spear off the road and lob you into a field before the end of your driveway. It’s a hairy, lairy, angry piece of work. 

We know it’s an M car.  Adding ‘///’ to the name doesn’t make this the M4 for discerning collections and connoisseurs. It makes it look like someone in BMW’s marketing office fell asleep on a keyboard. Probably after being up all night trying to find something nice to write about how the X7 looks. 

The triple-slash M4 goes on sale this November and will stick around until production winds up in April 2020. To make way for a 7-series ///M£$$**=(! Edition, most likely.