641bhp BMW M2 review. With 40% more power, this Litchfield M2 is wild..

Well, welcome to a new Harry's Garage video, and today's car is the BMW M2 G87 version, the latest version. And if you are a regular watcher of Harry's Garage, you'll say, hang on a minute, hasn't he tested one of those before? Well, I have. Last summer, I had a Zandvoort Blue one here, and we got on okay with it. This one is very different. This one has been up at Litchfield Motors, and he's added some horsepower to it. Quite a lot of horsepower to it, and quite a lot of torque. And he's done a suspension, mods on it, and I caught my eye, I think, hang on a minute, I think I have to revisit this. The standard car, 460 metric horsepower. This one, 641 horsepower. Torque, that's up 40% as well. It makes a dramatic difference to how it drives, as you'll see in a moment. Now, I'm not going to go into full details on this car, because I did it on the previous video. I'll put a link up there, so you can see that if you want to know full details. But I just think in black, the sort of looks calmed down a bit, because it's just this square blocky look. It just looks slightly clumsy, the styling of it. But black sort of disguises it. And if you come round the side, I think the muscle, I've always liked the muscle. Who doesn't? The way the arches are really pumped out on it. But now, these HRE form-flowed alloy wheels, now they save 2.4 kilos per wheel, which is quite a lot. But they improve the looks. I can't stand black wheels at the best of times, but on the M2, they just looked awful. What a difference it looks with the sort of, with smoked look. There is quite a lot of brake dust on here, because I was out in it yesterday. But that helps. And also, it has a chassis lowering kit on it as well, so it's got adjustable platforms on it. And that's just dropped it, and just the wheels just look better. It's running, so you know, on Michelin Pilot Sport S's, rather than Cup 2, that was an option on this car. I think it's got the track pack on this car as well. And then, round the back, the only change here, this one has Akrapovic exhaust on it, which I'm mixed on it, but it is an essential part of the tuning package. Other things to note, again, the black disguise it. Why is it so clumsy here? This rear diffuser just stops there. That's not going to do anything aero-wise. Also another comment on this one, you get the carbon roof as standard on it, but there is a muscular look about it. When I look around this car now, and having seen it on the road and what it offers, it sort of reminds me of the Maserati Shamar. It's pumped out. You're not quite sure if it's really ugly or really pretty. Think of Alfa SZ, if you like, and the Monster from the 80s. That is the sort of vibe I get off this car. But what it's really about is how it drives. 641 horsepower. I think that might be quite exciting. Let's go and take it outside. Comes alive. Difference in this one to the other one I've reviewed, the seats. This has the track package, so it has all sorts of extra bits on it, and there's a sophisticated traction control device, and these seats. You look at them, and they look super aggressive, but they've got padded side bolsters. When you clamber in, you're not hit with a hard carbon look, but you've got that weird bit in the middle, which I really don't understand. And oddly, they are all electric, which is odd. You'd expect them as part of this package not to be electric, but they are, and they tip, so they give easy access to the back, and owners comment that it is a lot more spacious in here than previous generation M2, which is good, and a manual. Now, that's an option on this. For £50 last time I looked, I ought to say just the track package is expensive now. £9,950 extra. In here, you've got wireless charging in there, decent, I mean, because it's based on a normal car, the M2, you do get the sort of, you know, places to put bottles, you've got glove box, good storage, but what this one is about is all the noise and all the sounds that this car does, and yeah, initial startup, there you go, it's got the trick exhaust on it, which you wouldn't really know if I just go to home here. Yeah, this is, the other thing, this is the sort of standard setup here, it tells me what mode I'm in. I'm in efficient mode, there's efficient sports or sports plus, sounds a bit mad calling this car efficient, because that's not really what it's about, but it does its best. Anyway, so yeah, the wraparound dash layout, we'll just have to get used to it. It's not pretty, but it's extremely functional, and there is an enormous amount of information on there, and I love the way you can adjust elements of it to get it to your car. One of the things I'll have to do in a moment is actually take out the speed warnings. Decided my front drive is 20 miles an hour, it's not, but it'll bleep at me, so I have to turn all those warnings off, otherwise I'll go slightly crazy. But anyway, let's head out and see what this car is all about. I'm all in normal, just pulling away from here. Yeah, well that didn't take long to get to 60. I'm going to be saying that a lot in this review, I think, but yeah, it's pretty civilised in its normal setup, as I've got it in now. You can see on there all the things, it's just comfort on the suspension, it's got the standard dampers on this car, and they do adjust in each parameter. As I say, there's so much adjustment now on these BMWs, I really like what they've done, and I can forgive the steering wheel, which isn't that, it's still too thick BMW, but you're sticking with it, and you've been at it since, well, I don't know, 90s, I suppose. But you have the M1 and M2 button, which are just brilliant and give access to your personal setup, and I forgive the wheel for having those two levers on them there. I did test it on my noisy bit of road, and it came out at 75 decibels, so it's civilised, despite all the tuning, despite the trick exhaust on it. Yeah, everyday usable, not noisy, yeah, a nice setup. There's no escaping the electric steering feel it comes with this car. They've all had to move it for the lane departure reasons, but I'm interested to see if it has sharpened up with all that work that Litchfield have done, taking the rubber bushing out. It's one of those things, you didn't feel quite as connected as you thought you should with your M2. I'm going to second and do the squirt up the hill, here we go. Yeah, I can confirm those 600 and something horses are very healthy and ready to gallop at any moment. As it was demonstrated up there, it's lively, yeah, it gives the tyres quite a lot of work, and I'm in M2 now, so there's a bit more exhaust noise coming through. I'm going to go back to home there, yeah, so we're on sport, still in comfort on suspension, sport on steering, and comfort on brakes. Yeah, I never understand why they feel you have to adjust the brake feel on a car like this. You should have one brake feel that you get used to every time you jump in the car. Nice gear change to use as well. I've got to remember that it does blip itself, so I'll change it to third. There you go, that wasn't me. Into second, yeah, it can do that as well. Yes, let's concentrate. What have we got? Suspension on normal, comfort as they term it, and this is my tricky bit of road. For such an extreme car, this is excellent, really excellent, really easy to live with. I do like the way we have these adjustable dampers here. I'm amazed how good it feels down here. There is a tighter bit of control, but the actual spring rates, the actual feels you go down the road, I am not feeling as though I'm in a modified car. This could be standard and the M2 was surprisingly good on a road like this before, you know, literally got anywhere near it. Good over there. Just, yeah, turning is sharp. I'm just playing with the gear lever now because it's fun. Good heavens. Now, there is a difference through there. There is a connection there that was lacking. Previous standard M2, I took it round there and you just trust it. There wasn't really anything really coming through the steering there. That felt sharper and there was just a hint of feel coming through the way. It just feels tighter, but I mean that from a steering point in point of view, rather than actually suspension being tighter. So, I'm impressed. Right, time for some likes and dislikes of this car. What have I noticed over my time with it? I'll just take it out of M1 to shut it up slightly. Yeah, brakes are grabby on it. I'm not quite sure why they're so grabby. I hoped it was just the setting, but when you jumped into it first time, you have to control your braking. A bit like Audis of the past, but super powerful brakes. No complaint on power. You're not missing carbon brakes with this car. It has exceptional power. Another one, every now and then, if I put it into sport, it's just too sharp, I find, for on-road, the throttle movement. And when you are just trying to pull out of a junction, it's slightly clumsy. That's why I keep having putting it back into efficient. It's just off the line. I'd like a slightly different map on it. Just feels alive. It pops and bangs. Oh, it's a wild ride. Wild, but I think it's incredibly controllable. It has this M drift button or variable control of the track control. It works a dream. I cannot get over how well it works. I have it on three blobs and it just makes the car feel alive. But even in normal mode, it is controlling this wild torrent of 646 horsepower way better. And it's the torque. The torque is monstrous. At 560 pound-foot, a huge number. Think of the power of today's Porsche 992 Turbo S. That's basically what I've got in this. Not quite as much to about 20 pound-foot short, but as near as dammit. And I weighed this car and it was less than BMW stated. They stated 1,700 kilos. I put this on the scale of 1,660 kilos. Yes, it's got the lighter wheels on it and it's got the lighter exhaust. So there's about half of that weight saving. But the rest, I don't know if it's the seats or whatever it is. But it's 1,660 kilos and 646 horsepower shoving it along down the road. And all that torque from, well, it's 4,000 rpm peak torque. It's absolute animal. It is precisely as you would imagine a 640-odd horsepower M2 to feel. But I feel in control. It's just so naughty. And because it's got such a good system, the clever diff, the traction controls, etc., it feels more controllable than it has any right to. Now, there is obviously a cost to all these modifications on this car, but I think they're pretty reasonable, really. So the ECU to get this horsepower, it actually has to be sent off to Finland to unlock the main ECU. And that's £1,795 for that. But it is programmable. So you can program the pops and bangs if you don't want those. And also, I forgot to mention it, torque limited in first and second in this car. Third gear is I need to be in third before I get full performance and the full horses and torque, which is very clever, I think. I think it's a good thing to do. But that's all programmable. And once you buy the car, you can do it on your phone via an app. The spring platforms to bring down the ride height and make those wheels feel the arches, £1,495 for that. Suspension, all the uniball linkages, the adjustable toe-in, toe-out at the rear, new steering arms. All that is about £2,000. I think the big cost, which is a surprise, is the cost of the exhaust. There's a Mil-Tec exhaust, cat-back system. I think it was £2,600. But the Crawford Exhaust I've got on here, then that's just over £6,000, £6,200. And then the other big costs are the wheels and tyres. I think they're about £5,500. So there are £16,000 worth of mods on this car. But I think you can make a few savings there. I wouldn't do the wheels. I'd have the standard wheels painted silver, I think. And the exhaust, yeah, I'm not sure if I'd go the whole hog. I'm tempted with the 8kg save, but let's have it out of here. Whoa! Yeah. So, and if you look at them in the classifiers, M2s, even after a year, are at £52,000, £53,000. £2,000, £3,000 mods on it. And a dealer would give you about £8,000 off. And talking to Ian Litchfield, it's really interesting what's happening at Litchfield now, because the previous generation M2, second and third owners have got them. He's actually adding kits to those, and the ECU mods and things, one or two of them a day. I can see that happening on this car, because where else do you get a manual sort of two-wheel drive, front engine, 600 and something horsepower car for about £50,000, £60,000? I can see this being a real sought-after car in the future. It is now, really. And I like the way I've got used to the looks and this black, it disguises the bits, the awkward bits, the square bit at the front and the overhang. And now this is just fun. It's got me looking at the classifier saying, crikey, how can you get close to that? I mean, if you think about it, it's Aston Martin Vantage, the new one, that's 670 horsepower, but it's auto only, paddle shift only, and about well over £100,000 more than this car. But this is a little pool of wonderful cars I didn't expect to be seeing in 2024, 2025. But here it is, BMW do their electric cars and rubbish i5, but they also make the M2. And I haven't had so much fun as I've had in this the last few days. It behaves precisely as you would imagine a 640 horsepower M2 to behave. And I like the way it drives. I feel connected with it. I like the mods. So, yeah, I've enjoyed my time with it. I hope you've enjoyed this video. If you have, well, keep watching, keep subscribing. More videos coming along very soon.