This is the most Australian car ever. The BMW Maaate Competition. Paul gets behind the wheel of BMW's most powerful series production car, the 2020 BMW M8 Competition to see whether it's as Australian as he is! Is it worth $350,000 though? Watch and find out!
Read the full review: https://www.carexpert.com.au/review/2020-bmw-m8-competition-review/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=review&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=single-car-review
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 01:11
Under the Bonnet: 04:39
Interior: 06:10
Infotainment: 08:26
Features: 12:10
Practicality: 13:32
On the Road: 15:30
Acceleration Test: 18:54
Verdict: 27:02
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
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@bmwaustralia @BMW @BMWM
Read the full review: https://www.carexpert.com.au/review/2020-bmw-m8-competition-review/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=review&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=single-car-review
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 01:11
Under the Bonnet: 04:39
Interior: 06:10
Infotainment: 08:26
Features: 12:10
Practicality: 13:32
On the Road: 15:30
Acceleration Test: 18:54
Verdict: 27:02
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you! #bmw #review #m8competition #m8 #sportscar
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au
Paul Maric:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric
@bmwaustralia @BMW @BMWM
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. Let's talk about the word "mate" very quickly.
00:03 It's an Australian term colloquially used to refer to a friend, but you can also use it if you've forgotten someone's name.
00:09 So you'd go like this. "G'day mate, good to see you."
00:11 What you can also do though is use it when you refer to something awesome.
00:16 So if your friend was to rock up in that, you would go "mate,
00:19 that is awesome!" Because this right here is the new BMW M8 Competition.
00:25 And while you can get cheaper 8 Series cars like the M850 and other variants of the 8 Series,
00:31 this is the one that you want to get if you want your mates to hear you coming from a kilometer away, because it sounds
00:37 absolutely incredible. It's priced at just over
00:39 $350,000 and it kind of competes with cars like the Porsche 911, the Audi R8 V10 Plus and also the Mercedes AMG GT.
00:47 Today we're going to do a detailed review plus some performance tests because I want to know how quick our mate over here is.
00:54 If you do want to skip ahead, you've got time codes on the screen there.
00:57 Or if you're on YouTube, you can scroll down to the links in the description.
01:00 Also, if you haven't done so already, I'd love it if you could hit the subscribe button and also press the bell icon.
01:05 That'll tell you every single time we go out for a drive with our good mate Competition.
01:09 Let's talk exterior. But before we do, can we just take a second to appreciate how absolutely stunning that looks?
01:17 It is a good-looking car.
01:19 This color here is called Frozen Marina Bay Blue and you can get up to 20 colors in the M8 Competition.
01:26 I think this color is similar in the way that my car's configured the Supra.
01:29 I have like a matte silver and you can get this in a frozen silver as well, given they're both sort of BMWs.
01:34 I think they're a similar finish. So you've got a little bit of reflectiveness,
01:37 but it's very much flat and when it approaches you, it just looks completely different to a metallic paint.
01:42 Let's talk about the carbon fiber around this car. So this car has the optional N carbon fiber package.
01:47 So you have carbon fiber here, down the bottom, on the wing mirrors, on the boot lip as well.
01:52 The entire M8 range, regardless of whether you tick that $10,000 carbon fiber package, has a carbon roof.
01:57 What about the styling down the front here? You can tell that this is all about aggression.
02:01 This is all about getting as much air into that engine as you can. So you've got this big nostril here.
02:06 There's no active veins here. This just needs air all the time.
02:10 You've got another nostril down the bottom and then you have radiator vents to the side.
02:14 Then on top of that, you have a lot of gizmos and gadgets at the front of the car.
02:17 So this is a camera here, 360 degree camera. This helps you with front vision. There's also this. This is the night vision camera.
02:24 This is probably the most pointless feature you can option on a car, but it does come standard in the M8 competition for Australia.
02:30 I'll show you how that works later on.
02:31 It's good at detecting animals and pedestrians and that kind of thing at night time.
02:35 And then on top of that, down the bottom, you have a radar here for the cruise control and other safety functions.
02:41 These lights are pretty special. See how it says BMW Laser? These are actually laser lights.
02:47 So they're not a traditional LED element.
02:49 This has lasers inside it and instead of just shooting out onto the road,
02:53 it goes through a set of mirrors that fire through yellow phosphorus, which increases brightness.
02:58 It then goes through a secondary diffuser. You can get up to 600 metres of range with these lights.
03:03 They operate 30% more efficient than LEDs as well.
03:06 So they are an incredible headlight and this is the type of technology you'll see rolling out to cars in the future.
03:12 Mind you, I don't know how expensive that would be to replace. Probably a lot, because it is a highly complex lighting setup.
03:18 What about this to the side? This is another way you can spend a little bit more money.
03:22 So the car comes standard with these wheels. They're 20 inch alloy wheels.
03:24 But instead of the steel brakes, we have the optional carbon ceramic brakes.
03:29 Just have a look at that. They are absolutely stunning.
03:31 If I could have one of those on my wall, I would absolutely love to.
03:34 $16,500 for these. 400mm, six piston calipers with cross drilling.
03:40 I mean, they are just a work of art.
03:41 You can tell these apart from the other brakes because they have the gold calipers on them too.
03:45 Now in terms of dimensions, this may not look like a massive car, but it's just under 4.9 metres long,
03:51 which means it's almost as big as an X5. So that is a mammoth length.
03:55 There's a carbon vent on the side here, but it's fake.
03:58 Come around to the back of the car.
04:00 You can tell the M8 Competition aside from the regular M8 because it has the black boot lip spoiler,
04:06 unless of course it has the carbon package, which gives you the carbon spoiler.
04:09 M8 Competition, of course, is also signified by the competition badge under the M8.
04:14 And then there's the exhaust system,
04:16 which sounds absolutely incredible. Plus a little bit more carbon fibre down here.
04:23 Let me know what you think of the car. Is it as good looking as I think it is?
04:26 Because to me, this is one of the best looking cars in this segment.
04:29 It doesn't quite have that sporty proportion as something like an AMG GT or a 911,
04:34 but I think it kind of screams sportiness and a Grand Tourer all sort of melded into the one package.
04:39 Now, before we get stuck into the interior, I'm going to show you the engine
04:42 because there is some tricky business under there.
04:45 Now, you know, I love my engineering tech. So let's have a look at this engine.
04:48 This is pretty damn cool. 4.4 litre. It's called the S63.
04:52 It makes 460 kilowatts of power, 750 newton metres of torque, more carbon fibre.
04:59 See there, I'm going to take that off. That's pretty cool as well, actually.
05:02 And it's real as well, just in case you're wondering.
05:05 So some unique parts about this engine. I love a few things.
05:08 So firstly, there's an electric pump just for cooling the turbochargers.
05:12 So the turbochargers sit there just in the V and that electric pump will run even when the car's off
05:17 just to keep everything nice and cool. These strut tower braces are amazing.
05:21 So standard strut tower brace, but to overcome the issue of having piping to the airbox,
05:26 they've actually developed the brace so that the piping goes through the brace.
05:29 You don't have to go around it or under it.
05:31 The braking system is unique in this car as well because they've been able to integrate the activation,
05:36 the brake booster and the control functions into one module.
05:38 So not only does that save weight, saves about two kilos,
05:41 they've also been able to integrate an electric activation of the brake system,
05:45 which gives you the ability to have two different brake pedal feels.
05:48 So you can have one for comfort and one for sport.
05:50 So ultimately that gives you faster response on the brake pedal when you are in sport mode
05:54 and on a racetrack and then softer feel when you're just cruising around town.
05:57 How does this compare to the M850i?
05:59 Well, you've got stiffer engine mounts, you've got more camber and you also have ball joint tow links instead of rubber.
06:05 So that completes the package and makes this different enough to just your regular M850i.
06:10 Let's talk about interior. And this is what the inside of your mate looks like.
06:14 Well, the M8.
06:16 And you can see more carbon fibre. And then look at this seat.
06:20 They look incredible. This diamond stitching in the seat.
06:24 Also on the doors, which is cool.
06:25 Merino leather, standard in the car. Leather across the dashboard.
06:29 And it's all presented in a pretty clean and concise manner.
06:32 You've got your iDrive screen up the top there, a cluster of controls here,
06:35 and then just your basic functions all the way through.
06:38 It is really quite minimalist.
06:40 So given this car is $350,000 worth, let's see how well it performs up against our gyrometer.
06:47 We use this to test the softness of the materials inside the car.
06:51 We measure the dashboard in this center console as well.
06:53 It measures from 0 to 100, where 0 is the softest, 100 is the hardest.
06:58 So let's try on the dashboard here. We'll see what that feels like.
07:03 That's impressive. So around 54.
07:05 Okay, let's check this out because that feels really nice and soft.
07:10 Okay, that's not too bad as well.
07:11 So yes, the conclusion is the more money you spend, the softer the materials are inside your cabin.
07:17 Build quality. Let's have a look at that.
07:19 So everything feels really quite nice and solid.
07:22 You can't fault everything around the car.
07:24 The only thing I did notice is this carbon fiber hood is a little wonky.
07:28 I don't know if that's by design or whether that's loose,
07:31 but yeah, that seems a bit strange that that's able to move around so much.
07:34 While we're talking about questionable things, piano black.
07:37 I just don't understand why they use it.
07:39 Literally one touch and it marks.
07:41 This already has scratch marks on it.
07:42 And then all these buttons have fingerprints on them.
07:44 They're like a capacitive touch button.
07:46 So when you push on it, you feel a little bit of feedback on your finger.
07:49 But yeah, they just get so dirty so quickly,
07:52 and I just don't think they should be using that in the cabin.
07:54 I just want to touch on a couple of the details I've just noticed.
07:56 You have a look at this gear stick.
07:57 In the M850 and some of the other 8 Series products, you have a glass shifter.
08:01 But because this is an M car, a fully fledged M car,
08:04 they have M embossed into there.
08:07 It just looks really cool.
08:09 You've got your shift speed selector built into that gear shifter,
08:11 and then M stitching around the actual shifter itself.
08:15 You have this Alcantara suede material all over the lower parts of the car.
08:19 And then across the entire roof as well.
08:21 So these minor details that make you feel like you're getting value for money.
08:25 If you can look at it that way.
08:26 Let's talk infotainment.
08:27 This car comes with iDrive, which is BMW's infotainment system.
08:31 This is iDrive version 7.
08:33 Today, I'm going to give you a quick walkthrough of iDrive.
08:35 If you want to see a detailed review of iDrive and all the components attached to it,
08:39 you can click up there.
08:40 But today, what we're going to do is just have a quick look at it,
08:42 and then also go through all the specific M functions for this car.
08:46 So this is what your main screen looks like.
08:47 It's divided into sections which you can customise.
08:50 Then if we go into the nav menu, you can see that it is a touchscreen,
08:54 and very fast as well.
08:55 The processing power behind this is excellent.
08:57 You can see your traffic overlays on the road there.
09:00 And then you can also control the nav screen using the iDrive controller here,
09:04 which has a stack of shortcut buttons beneath it.
09:07 If we click on the home screen, you'll see all the menus off to the side.
09:10 This allows you to jump between media.
09:12 This is where you'll find AM, FM, DAB plus digital radio,
09:16 along with all of your connectivity options such as Bluetooth.
09:18 There's music storage internally, and also the ability to hook up on USB.
09:22 There's a standard USB port plus a USB-C port as well.
09:25 Connected media comes in the form of a system called Connected Drive.
09:29 That allows you to purchase apps to install on the car.
09:31 So for example, this car has what they call the drive recorder.
09:34 It uses the car's AEB camera to look ahead and also store information.
09:39 It's not quite as good as the system in a Tesla.
09:41 A Tesla will store basically anything you want it to.
09:43 This on the other hand only stores up to around 30 seconds worth of footage
09:47 in the event of an accident.
09:48 So it's not as useful as the Tesla system, but similar to the Tesla system,
09:51 iDrive now does remote updates.
09:53 So this drive recorder was part of a remote update for iDrive recently,
09:57 and BMW is constantly adding these features to the car.
10:00 I'll show you two new features they've just rolled out.
10:01 There's the experience modes.
10:03 So in this, you can select which experience you want.
10:06 In the executive package, it turns on your seat ventilation,
10:08 puts temperature controlled climate on and gives you ambient lighting.
10:12 If you want expressive, it'll adjust that to just ambient lighting.
10:15 But this morning, I did have a play with this one on the way over here,
10:18 which is caring car.
10:19 If you're driving and you're feeling a bit tired,
10:21 I think the common thing is to open the window to get a bit of cool air on you.
10:24 If you do the vitalize program, it runs for three minutes
10:27 and it varies the fan speeds on your face.
10:29 So it goes from low fan speed to high fan speed at a really cold temperature,
10:33 then puts your cooled seats on as well, all in a bid to wake you up a bit.
10:38 So yeah, I don't know.
10:39 I wouldn't pay for that, but that is now part of this system
10:41 and the connected drive package.
10:43 What about features that are specific to the M car?
10:45 So if we swipe across on the home screen,
10:48 this is where everything starts to get a little fun.
10:49 So you have engine data, which shows you your engine temperature
10:52 and also boost pressure.
10:54 You've got tyre pressure.
10:55 And then what you can do is set up the way that you want the car to react
10:58 with the M1 and the M2 controls.
11:00 And then we go one step further now with an M mode
11:03 that allows us to change all the features on the displays in front of us.
11:06 So let's start over here with M mode.
11:08 One push of that brings up road, sport and track.
11:11 In road mode, you get your normal screens in front of the driver,
11:13 the normal heads up display.
11:14 One more push of M mode puts it into sport mode.
11:17 That changes the display ahead of the driver,
11:19 so you have all of your critical controls.
11:21 It reduces the amount of driver assistance systems.
11:24 Finally, if you push and hold the M mode button, it puts it into track mode.
11:28 Track mode disables everything.
11:30 So we'll go activate track mode.
11:32 Disables everything that's going to distract you.
11:34 So none of that is happening.
11:35 Everything in front of the driver is just focused on speed and paying attention.
11:39 So it is cool that they've been able to configure this system
11:41 so that if you are at a racetrack,
11:43 you don't have all of these fancy systems distracting you.
11:46 If you go into the setup menu, this allows you to select what the car's currently doing.
11:50 So you can switch between Efficient Sport, Sport Plus for engine, chassis
11:54 and then steering between comfort and sport,
11:56 the brake pedal feel between comfort and sport.
11:58 Then MX Drive, because this is an all-wheel drive car,
12:01 you can go between four-wheel drive, four-wheel drive sport
12:04 or two-wheel drive where it disables stability control altogether
12:07 and becomes the ultimate drift machine.
12:09 Let's talk about the other features that you get as standard.
12:12 So dual-zone climate control with heated and cooled seats.
12:15 But here's the best bit.
12:16 Not only are the seats heated, the armrests are heated as well
12:20 and you have a heated steering wheel.
12:22 So there is not one part of your body that's going to be cold if you switch all that on.
12:25 Auto-dimming rear vision mirror, low and high speed AEB with pedestrian detection,
12:30 wireless phone charging, slot the phone into there, switch is on.
12:34 You have radar cruise control with the self-steering function.
12:37 I tried that on the ride up here and it works okay,
12:40 just gets a little bit confused sometimes.
12:41 Just expanding on those laser headlights as well, this has a matrix function too.
12:46 So when you're following another car, you can have high beam on around that car
12:49 and then it auto dips as other cars approach it.
12:52 That works in unison with the night vision function.
12:55 So I mentioned before that it is kind of useless because the camera lags behind the car moving
12:59 and while it does detect pedestrians and animals in the distance,
13:03 you kind of have to have your eyes on the road and then over here and then back again.
13:07 So I don't know, it's not really a very useful function.
13:09 What does the key look like?
13:11 Well, here it is.
13:12 It's quite a nice metallic key.
13:14 It's quite weighty as well.
13:15 You've got your BMW M colours on the side.
13:18 You have unlock, lock on the BMW roundel, boot and then a button here to turn the lights on
13:23 so the car's easier to find and you can also use your phone to unlock the car using the digital key.
13:27 Once it's enabled, you just approach the car, grab the door handle, in you hop and away you drive.
13:32 Let's talk practicality and we'll kick off with storage.
13:34 Grab our bottle, fits nicely into there.
13:37 You've got two cup holders and then inside the door you have a pocket for a bottle holder.
13:42 It's a little bit awkward and then room on the other side of it for trinkets and bits.
13:46 Okay, oh that's not too bad.
13:48 So centre console is a decent size.
13:50 You have your phone storage down the front and then a glove box as well
13:53 that'll hold the manual and not much else.
13:56 What about comfort?
13:57 Yeah, these seats hug you in beautifully.
14:00 The steering wheel is an excellent size and being an M wheel it fills the hands nicely.
14:04 I reckon it's a good position to be in to decimate a few corners.
14:07 What about back seats?
14:08 We know there are seats in a 911 but no seats in an AMG GT.
14:13 You basically push this out of the way, just lean it forward, it automatically moves.
14:18 Don't know how this is going to work so I'm going to slide in like this.
14:21 Tap those shoes so I don't get it dirty.
14:27 Alrighty, no headroom at all but I guess I could sit in here if I had to.
14:33 Let's wheel that back.
14:34 It comes up a little bit as well and then crushes you.
14:37 Yeah, this is pretty tight in here but if you legally had to carry another two passengers you could.
14:43 While you don't have a great deal of headroom in the second row,
14:46 you do have a pretty reasonable boot.
14:47 So you open it pressing this button at the back.
14:50 The boot opens electrically as well so you don't need to touch anything.
14:53 420 litres worth of cargo space.
14:55 Over to the side you've got a first aid kit plus a tyre inflation kit.
14:59 You have a little storage net off to the side with a hidey hole that has a stack of fuses.
15:05 And then on top of that you can also drop the second row because you have top tether points there.
15:09 You pull these two levers and then those seats fall out of the way.
15:14 Let's see how it goes with our bags.
15:16 So this one fits in easily.
15:19 What about this?
15:19 Will this fit in like a glove?
15:22 Have a look at that.
15:23 So it is a usable boot for your M8.
15:25 Lock button there as well if you want to just press it and walk away.
15:28 So we're driving the M8 Competition.
15:34 What does it feel like behind the wheel?
15:35 Well in a sense I feel like I have a lot of power under my right foot.
15:39 So we've got that 4.4 litre twin turbo V8.
15:42 There's an eight-speed automatic transmission here.
15:45 It's a torque converter so not a silly dual clutch.
15:47 And when you lean on the throttle it really doesn't have to do a lot of
15:51 hunting through the gears for you to feel like it's got all of that grunt ready to go.
15:56 It's not light-hearted this engine that's for sure.
15:58 So while it is an eight-speed automatic transmission,
16:00 you've got six different shift modes to choose from.
16:02 So using the gear lever here, I'm in drive at the moment, but if I go up to drive three,
16:08 it effectively makes the shifts much quicker, the gearbox sharper.
16:12 Everything is just heightened sensors.
16:14 I can then go over to the sport setting by pushing across once,
16:17 and then I have three levels of sport shifting.
16:20 The sport shifting is manual intervention through the paddle shifters on the steering wheel.
16:24 And then again, the higher I go in the sport settings,
16:26 the quicker it's going to shift with each gear change.
16:29 Let's talk drive modes and we'll start with comfort.
16:31 Well there isn't actually a comfort mode.
16:33 There's no button that says comfort.
16:35 And they've been quite clever in that because despite this being marketed as a Grand Tourer,
16:39 and certainly the M8 50 years and the 8 Series in general is,
16:43 this isn't quite the Grand Tourer of the cheaper models because it is pretty firm.
16:48 And yeah, I get it's an M8 competition, but at the end of the day,
16:51 if you're not going to compete directly head to head with something like a 911,
16:55 which is a small compact sporty car,
16:57 and you're going to go for something bigger like this that screams Grand Tourer,
17:01 you've got to make it comfortable enough.
17:02 And despite the fact we're running on 20-inch alloy wheels, it can be just a little bit jarring.
17:06 It is smooth on smooth freeways, but you find yourself on a country road like this,
17:09 you get potholes, it can get a little bit brittle and firm,
17:13 which I think kind of takes away from the overall image of the car.
17:17 And that communicates over to noise as well. There's a bit of tyre noise in the cabin.
17:21 If you're driving on a course chip road at highway speeds, it will propagate through the cabin.
17:25 It's not dreadfully bad, the sound insulation is pretty good,
17:28 but you will find that it picks up a little bit the faster you go,
17:31 100 kilometres an hour, 110 kilometres an hour,
17:34 it really just starts reverberating through the cabin and you take notice of it pretty
17:38 clearly as those speeds pick up.
17:41 Right, when you're sick of comfort or whatever that mode is,
17:44 I've got these M buttons configured to deliver rear-wheel drive, no stability control,
17:48 and then all-wheel drive with limited stability control, but all the noise.
17:52 So I'll double-tick M1, that puts me into a manual transmission mode, drop it back to third.
17:58 Oh, it is making all sorts of good noises at the moment.
18:01 And third gear, funnily enough, at these low speeds, is more than enough for this car.
18:07 As you whack back through those gears,
18:12 you can hear crackles, pops from the exhaust.
18:15 Oh my God, this thing has some absolute go.
18:22 In-gear acceleration here is stupendous.
18:25 There's no turbo lag and it just starts delivering torque,
18:28 that 750 Newton metres of torque is just flying at you all the time,
18:33 and it just never lets up, it is just always piling on.
18:37 And it is seriously addictive.
18:41 I just don't know that you'll have a license for long in Australia if you keep up at it.
18:45 But what's that like in real life?
18:49 Well, we went to the drag strip to performance test it, and this is what happened.
18:54 Okay, so time to log some performance numbers.
18:56 I'm going to do this a little bit differently.
18:58 I want to see what this is like to start with from 0 to 100 kilometres an hour
19:01 in a number of different modes.
19:02 I'm going to start with comfort mode, so everything is on normal.
19:06 I have the auto stop/start system running.
19:08 This is exactly what it would be like if you rolled up to the traffic lights.
19:11 So the car is off, I'm just going to stand on the throttle and we will see what happens.
19:14 Here we go.
19:15 All right.
19:23 That sounds sick.
19:27 Okay, so 0 to 100 kilometres an hour in 4.5 seconds.
19:32 So let's go back and try working our way up through the drive modes.
19:38 Okay, this time around I'm going to put everything into the sportiest settings it can go in,
19:43 but no launch control yet, and stability control will stay on.
19:47 So I'll put that into Sport Plus, put that into Sport Plus, put that into Sport, Sport.
19:54 Okay, that is all done.
19:55 We'll turn stop/start off.
19:56 Everything is in its highest setting.
19:59 I'll put the gearbox into Sport 3 as well.
20:03 Okay, that is all good to go.
20:07 Let's see how this runs.
20:08 So I'm just going to stand on the throttle and we'll see what happens.
20:11 That feels, that felt quicker.
20:21 Holy crap.
20:22 Okay, 4.1 seconds.
20:24 We are working our way up to this magical number of 3.2 seconds, which is the official claim.
20:31 Okay, next one.
20:32 I've got M1 set up with everything in its most hardcore mode with limited stability,
20:38 and I'm going to try shifting here as well, just on my own.
20:42 We'll see if we can get any quicker to 100.
20:44 So that's all set.
20:45 Here we go.
20:46 Okay, that felt quick.
20:57 That felt quick.
20:58 All right, that is better.
20:59 3.9 seconds.
21:00 So we're getting there.
21:02 Next time, it is going to be launch control, and I'm expecting to see some bloody good
21:07 numbers here.
21:08 Okay, so this time around, let's go all out.
21:10 Launch control on.
21:11 So to activate that, you come to a complete stop.
21:14 Stability control has to be completely off, so I've pushed and held that.
21:17 The light has come on down there.
21:19 I have to put it into S3, which is the hardest shifting mode.
21:23 I'm going to hold the foot on the brake, hard on the throttle, be on the kickdown switch,
21:26 and I'll see launch control active down here, and then I'll just let it go.
21:29 So here we go.
21:30 Let's see how quick we can get.
21:32 All right, that felt good.
21:41 Oh, there it is.
21:42 Okay, 3.4 seconds.
21:45 It was right on the lip there.
21:49 There is just a tiny bit left in it.
21:50 I kind of pre-shifted to second there, helped it get off the line, but I reckon 3.4 is about
21:56 as close as we're going to get.
21:58 But that felt good.
21:59 I'm just blingshotting forward.
22:01 Let's try our quarter mile time.
22:03 Okay, final run here is with launch control, and we're going to do the quarter mile this
22:08 time.
22:08 So we've lined up on the start line there.
22:10 Wish me luck.
22:12 Holy crap.
22:21 Oh, man, there's 140, 150, 160, 170, 180, 190.
22:29 Oh, my God.
22:30 220.
22:32 That is insane.
22:35 It's just run an 11.2 at 202 kilometers an hour.
22:41 This is a stock car.
22:44 That is insane.
22:45 And what's more insane about this whole situation is this track is damp.
22:50 So a stock car, damp track.
22:52 This is unbelievable.
22:54 And on top of that, 0 to 100 down to 3.3.
22:58 So it just takes a bit of finessing, but this is a serious machine.
23:01 What's this all going to set you back in terms of fuel economy?
23:07 I don't know how, but BMW has managed to get the combined fuel economy down to 10.4 litres
23:12 per 100 kilometres.
23:13 That's really impressive for a fire-breathing twin-turbo V8.
23:17 After a whole lot of racing, a whole lot of timing and a whole lot of driving hard, we're
23:22 averaging 14.3 litres per 100 kilometres.
23:25 That's with highway stints in between as well.
23:27 So it is going to use a little higher than the combined average if you go for it, which
23:31 is to be expected with a car like this.
23:32 Okay, so yeah, it's massively quick in a straight line, but how does it handle?
23:38 It sits absolutely dead flat.
23:43 So that is going to be one of the advantages of having a firm ride all the time.
23:48 It has no body roll.
23:49 The adaptive suspension does an incredible job of just keeping the ride firm.
23:53 But let's talk steering feel.
23:55 Really not in love with this.
23:57 When I was in the comfort setting or whatever it is in this car, it kind of didn't really
24:02 offer much feel and I thought, okay, well, that's just a comfort setting.
24:05 That's not a problem.
24:06 But as you start going in through the sport modes, they've just built in artificial feel
24:10 through the wheel.
24:11 So they've just made it heavier and it doesn't really offer much communication with what's
24:17 going on.
24:17 So as we come into this corner, it's heavy, but as I play with the wheel mid-corner, it's
24:23 not really giving me any sense of what's happening at the front end.
24:27 So it is a little disappointing that this doesn't really have that raw feel that you'll
24:31 find in something like an M3.
24:33 So the M8 is all-wheel drive.
24:35 You've got three different modes to choose from.
24:37 Standard all-wheel drive, all-wheel drive sport, which requires a limited stability
24:41 mode.
24:42 But then you can go two-wheel drive and that requires stability control to be switched
24:46 off entirely.
24:47 When it's in two-wheel drive, the front axle has no intervention at all and this becomes
24:51 a drift monster.
24:52 But for the most part, it's actually running as a rear-wheel drive and it only activates
24:56 the front axle when it detects slip.
24:58 And unlike the M850, this doesn't have a four-wheel steering setup, which is why it
25:02 feels a little more natural as you tip it into corners.
25:05 Let's talk brakes quickly.
25:06 So this car has the optional carbon ceramic brake package.
25:09 Normally with carbon ceramics, until they're warm, you get a lot of squealing and you just
25:13 don't get a great sense of brake pedal feel.
25:16 These brakes, they are seriously good.
25:18 Even when the car's cold, you can stand on the brakes.
25:20 They feel just like a normal set of brakes.
25:22 You'll never know the difference.
25:23 And then with that intelligent brake booster that I mentioned earlier in the video, you
25:27 notice the difference behind the wheel.
25:29 So when it's not in the sport setting, the brake pedal has a longer travel.
25:32 It's not as sensitive when you touch it.
25:35 Whereas now in the sport setting, I just lean on the brake and it's really just giving me
25:39 everything straight up.
25:40 I can feel the take-up point is much sooner.
25:42 And while it should feel artificial because of all the trickery that's going on, it doesn't
25:46 feel artificial at all.
25:47 You have confidence in the braking system.
25:50 And when you're doing 300 k's an hour, you need to pull up quickly.
25:53 That's something you definitely need.
25:55 Visibility out of the cabin is surprisingly good.
25:57 It is a big car, like I mentioned, it's almost the size of an X5.
26:00 So I can see clearly out the front, I've got a heads-up display, front and rear parking
26:04 sensors, a suite of reverse cameras and all those gizmos and gadgets.
26:08 The wing mirrors are pretty small, but they offer a pretty decent image with visibility
26:13 around the edges there on the concave, convex section.
26:16 I can never remember which one's which.
26:18 And there's a blind spot monitor built into there as well.
26:20 What I'm not loving though is the visibility on the screen in front of me.
26:25 The steering wheel blocks the bottom half of the screen.
26:28 So for example, when we were at the drag strip doing our performance testing, I couldn't
26:32 see that launch control was active.
26:34 And right now I can't see any of the other text that's at the bottom.
26:37 So range, time, the road that we're on, the drive mode that we're in, the temperature,
26:42 I can't see any of that because the steering wheel's in the way.
26:44 So I don't know whether that's just me because I'm a bit freakish or whether that's
26:48 actually the steering wheel being too high.
26:49 The other problem I've got is sometimes when I turn left, I'm catching the top of this
26:53 centre console lid.
26:54 You may have seen our other videos where that's an issue with Japanese cars.
26:58 It seems the Germans have caught the high centre console bug as well.
27:02 BMW M8 Competition.
27:05 I've fallen in love with this car because it sounds mean, it looks just absolutely stunning,
27:10 and it is a missile in a straight line.
27:13 I mean, the numbers that we're getting there, just over 11 seconds, quarter mile is,
27:16 it's supremo.
27:17 But there is a problem.
27:18 This isn't really a 911 competitor.
27:20 It's not even really an AMG GT competitor or even an R8 competitor.
27:24 This is more an Autobahn cruiser.
27:26 It's a missile for straight lines.
27:27 When you tip it into corners, it just doesn't feel nimble, it doesn't feel agile.
27:31 The steering feel isn't there.
27:32 Look, I really love the car.
27:34 Just don't buy it expecting it to be, you know, a bull terror that goes up against a
27:38 911.
27:38 This is more a car that you're going to line up on an Autobahn and do 200-300 kilometres
27:43 an hour in and put a big smile on your face.
27:45 The interior is absolutely stunning, and it looks, most importantly, like you've spent
27:48 $300,000 on a car.
27:50 There are some 911 models that don't look like you've spent $300,000 on a car.
27:53 So, look, I love it, but not for the reasons that I thought I would.
27:57 If you've liked this video and found it useful, hit the like button.
27:59 I'd also love it if you could subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon so you
28:03 get notified every time we publish a new review.
28:05 What else would you like to see us review?
28:07 Let us know in the comments below.
28:08 Is there anything in particular you want us to do with these cars?
28:11 But until next time, take it easy.