A few weeks back we were invited to the banks of Loch Lomond to try a selection of cars from the current BMW and Mini range. An easy decision for a BMW owner and a good chance to try one of the quick Minis as these had always alluded me.
There were a fair selection of cars available on the day but my mind was already made up: BMW M2, BMW 440i, BMW 740Ld xDrive and Mini John Cooper Works Convertible.
The plan for the day was to give my E46 M3 a hoon on the way over there and jump straight into the M2 for a good comparison. As with all good plans, fate stepped in and left me with a fault causing the traction control to kick in (now fixed) and so the drive there was rubbish.
BMW M2 Manual
Funnily enough, stepping into a brand new, manual M2 felt pretty good after the old M3. I’ve not driven the current M3/M4 but right away the M2 felt a familiar place to sit and on first getting onto the open road it was like being with an old friend.
It’s difficult to give a proper review after only about 30 minutes driving the car, but the M2 feels like they have taken the E46, modernised all the bits that needed it and gave it a slightly more powerful engine. So much so that when John Steele asked whether it was a NA straight six I questioned my own knowledge that it’s turbocharged (to be fair, he was driving at the time and I was still worrying about what might have been wrong with my car!).
Over the A817 Haul Road the M2 felt like a car you just want to drive all day long. The similarity to the M3 really is astounding considering they are about 15 years apart in conception. The extra torque of the M2 is noticeable however, and means the new car does need less work to keep it moving along at a fair lick. Also, the new manual gearbox has a shorter throw than the old car which makes it much nicer for stirring the gears – even though you need to do this a lot less.
What did make a bit of a difference when pushing on was that the M2 felt a lot more friendly for those of us not blessed with racing driver skills and reaction times. The E46 has a well earned reputation for ditch finding if you don’t respect it or aren’t paying attention. With much better brakes, what feels like much better grip in the corners and more advanced stability controls, you really can push the M2 with less driver skill. Whether this is a good thing or not depends on your own skill levels and how you feel like driving on a particular day. You can still turn all the systems pretty much off so I don’t think it’s too much of a problem.
BMW 740Ld xDrive
Do top company executives still buy 7 Series the way they used to when there were only 3, 5 and 7 Series available from BMW? I suspect not. The big 7 Series now seems to be a car that’s almost always seen being used by a limo company and if you’re going to be in the back, you might as well get the long wheelbase.
To give the 740Ld a proper test then, I got myself comfortable in the back seat and had a play with all the technology while John took me on a tour of the Lomond National Park. Having only the night before been in a last generation Audi A8 long wheelbase, the 740Ld was a big step up in both refinement and in gadgets.
There is very little noise in the back and all but the worst of our weather ravaged roads are handled with ease. If you were going to be driven from Glasgow to London then you would probably arrive a lot more relaxed having been in the BMW than if you’d taken the train or plane down (and you’d actually arrive straight to where you wanted to be).
The levels of technology are nearly over the top with a detachable Android tablet in the central armrest that can control everything from the roof, side and rear blinds, to the infotainment system and the massage seat Vitality Program (it’s a game you play where you put pressure on different parts of the seat and it helps to exercise the muscles and keep the blood flowing). There’s also a screen on the back of the front seats so you can catch up with the latest stock market news.
Being forced into the driver’s seat, the 740Ld is actually pretty easy to hustle about at a decent speed. The addition of rear wheel steering does help to hide some of the size and weight and make it less of a bus to navigate around country roads. Whether you need this extra complexity and cost when you are being driven about is debatable, but if you are going to use this as a family car then you’ll probably appreciate help.
BMW 440i
Having already driven the M2 today then the 440i had a difficult job to do. Bigger, heavier, slightly less powerful and without the M brakes and suspension it would be easy to just dismiss the car and not bother.
Get it onto some open road though and the 440i proves itself a very capable cruiser and it does have some advantages over the M2. It doesn’t feel much bigger inside but it’s much more comfortable and would be a better companion for a day’s driving if you weren’t ‘on it’.
Taking your family for a drive up to Oban for lunch and want a spirited drive? Get a 440i. Driving up with a group of friends? Take the M2.
Mini John Cooper Works Convertible
This was another car with a tough job to do after a day that involved driving the M2. Heading over the Haul Road just wasn’t as exciting as it was earlier in the day. It’s not that the Mini is slow or uninvolving, it’s just this road really wants a car with lots of power to really enjoy the open sections. The Mini felt good in the tighter sections and sounded decent with some manufactured pops and bangs, but I didn’t feel this was a road that you would really fall for.
As luck would have it for the Mini, there was a perfect road right at the end of the Haul road in which you can really test it and have some fun; surely the whole point of fast Minis? The A814 from Garelochhead to Arrochar is not a route you would ever really pick to take a supercar along. It’s very narrow in places, has some very tight turns and is like a roller-coaster with the level of undulations.  Really fast cars can’t stretch their legs and many slower cars just bounce around, make you feel sick and keep crashing into the suspension bumps stops. The mini was in it’s element.
If I drove this road ever day then I’d go out and buy a Mini JCW (with a roof) right away. It’s probably the most fun we had all day as you just leave the car in 2nd or 3rd gear and treat it like a go-kart. Third gear meant you’d leave the tarmac in a few sections but either way you were having more fun at legal speeds than you could with any of the other cars of the day. It really was a revelation and I can’t wait for the opportunity to test the Mini on some more roads that are local to me…..
