BMW M4 Competition review

BMW UK has made some firm but fair decisions with the M4, the biggest being to only bring the M4 Competition over, ignoring the base M4 with 473bhp and a six-speed manual gearbox. In the F82’s final year on sale, a piffling 0.5 per cent of people went stick-shift. You can’t blame the money men and women for not wanting to clutter showrooms with unwanted manuals, sad as it makes us – the extra interaction could sprinkle a little more magic into the drivetrain.

And now those pesky money people have had their way with the rear-wheel drive version too. We can argue the merits of that axing all day long, but the bottom line is that the M4 Competition is now £87,495 (£1,800 more than a BMW M3 Competition).

There’s a heck of a lot of stuff that’s standard fit, based on the fact everyone ticked those boxes on its predecessor: a head-up display, Harmon Kardon stereo, heated front seats, and wireless smartphone charging all feature.

Good luck embracing the options list. Those bucket seats are £4,450. Or you can have them with the M Race Track Package that bundles carbon ceramic brakes with gold calipers and the M Driver’s Pack - which ups the top speed to 180mph - for £11,900. Yikes!

The Technology Pack with adaptive LEDs, high beam assistance and electric bootlid is £3,025. The Ultimate Pack - which adds a heated steering wheel, a carbon exterior pack and reversing camera on top - is £12,850. You can pick out some bits individually, but you can easily push the M4 well beyond the £100,000 mark.

In truth, you could rock up and buy one for 87 grand (well, £900-odd a month) and be perfectly happy with what’s standard and not really miss any of the extras. We bet that 155mph limiter is fairly soft anyway.

As for the sensible stuff? The M4 comes with claims of 28mpg and 227g/km of CO2; our recent experience of modern BMW turbo engines suggest you’ll easily achieve – perhaps better – the claimed fuel economy in everyday driving. More mischief will likely see mpg dip into the low 20s.

Expect to pay around £900 a month on a personal lease – the car’s well equipped so you shouldn’t need to add much and push that up further.