BMW M4 convertible first drive review by Autocar

Here is an excerpt from the BMW M4 convertible first drive review by Autocar.

What is it like?
A car that’s very similar to the M4 coupé in terms of style, performance and driving substance.

Fire up and the exhaust is all blare and promise, and you won’t be disappointed when you unleash the straight six – 406lb ft of torque floods in from 1850rpm to 5500rpm, at which point you ride peak power all the way to 7300rpm.

This is a sensational engine, and its roof-off impact is all the greater for hearing the suck of induction and the blast of exhaust. The quad pipes sing harder in sport mode than in more eco-friendly settings too, and sometimes loudly enough that you’ll want to control their volume separately rather than via the engine throttle map.

The M4’s dynamic performance survives largely intact, although its polish has dulled in places. The convertible’s steering feel can seem curiously fogged at times – though the sensation is rare – and you can detect a faint, fast-pulsing shake through the body on choppier surfaces.

In hard-charged bends, too, you’ll feel the 70kg deadweight of a roof flat-packed a few feet behind you. If you set out to look for these differences, you’ll find them. But they’re small, and unless you obsess about them they barely diminish the very considerable thrills of this car, which are quite often magnified to glorious effect by the removal of its roof. And that includes swooping through curves.

In the dry the M4 has the grip of wall-climbing gecko, but in the wet it’s not so hard to get the orange traction control light flickering excitably. Limit the DSC’s interventions and you’ll discover a slightly challenging uncertainty at the edge of adhesion, although you’ll have to be pushing it to get there.