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BMW offers its compact sports car with four- and six-cylinder gasoline engines. This also includes a 2.0-litre diesel with two-stage turbocharging, proving how the 2 Series Coupe selection has something for everyone. Also, customers can have a manual or automatic gearbox, front- or all-wheel-drive, and other features. Of course, every vehicle, including this M240i, has an automatic eight-speed transmission except for the top-of-the-line M2 G87.
BMW initially only offered the M Performance model with xDrive, but last summer, a rear-wheel-drive version started to be produced. Following a fast lap around Hockenheim in the RWD M240i, the tail-happy coupe headed to the Autobahn for a series of acceleration tests. They also did a top-speed run. It accelerated to 62 mph (100 km/h) from a stop in 4.43 seconds. This exceeds the claimed time by almost three-tenths of a second.
According to later acceleration testing, the powerful inline-six engine allowed the two-wheel-drive M240i to complete the 62 to 124 mph (100 to 200 km/h) sprint in slightly under 10 seconds. On a stretch of the German motorway without restrictions, it reached 158 mph (254 km/h) at full speed. The GPS-based software, however, indicated that the vehicle’s actual speed was around 6 mph (10 km/h) lower.
The RWD M240i weighs roughly 55 kilograms (121 pounds) less when xDrive is disabled. But it’s still far from a lightweight vehicle. It weighs 1,635 kg (3,604 lbs), around 90 kg less than the current M2, making it very hefty. The latter is only available with RWD, but there are rumours that an xDrive version may be released after 2025.
The M240i has few competitors to worry about, with or without xDrive, as six-cylinder engines are scarce in this market. Although a stick shift in the M Performance variant would have been ideal, doing so might have hurt M2 sales. Speaking of the engine, given that gasoline particle filters are now commonplace on vehicles sold in the European Union, it doesn’t sound half awful.
