You’ve seen the BMW 4 Series, which is the two-door version of the 3 Series. You’ve seen the BMW M4, the “enthusiast’s” variant that’s still a little too soft. Now there’s the BMW M4 GTS, which is compromised just enough to finally make the M4 feel like a real M car.
At least, that’s the word on the street according to Motor Trend’s Jason Cammisa:
Cammisa is convinced that the normie M4 just doesn’t have the edge the M division used to produce before going all “soft.” But now they’ve tried again, except instead of making the normal M4 better, they’ve taken the better M4 and turned it into a special edition called the M4 GTS.
Except it’s horrible. Perfectly horrible, if you trust Cammisa’s take on what an M division car should be.
His argument is that the GTS improves over the normal M4 by being overall more frustrating to live with. The car’s crazy low front splitter scrapes on everything, the farty noise it makes is really loud, for real (there’s fewer speakers, and no pumped in engine noise), it requires you to fill it up with gas AND water, it’s so stiff it rattles and it’s everything that the real enthusiasts were apparently looking forward to with the original M4, even though it’s still slower than the fastest of Mustangs.
In the end, the claim is that the M division has started to remember the homologation-racing roots it has seemingly forgotten over past years by making the GTS, which is a compromised car that is world’s more painful to live with compared to the normal luxurious M4, but that’s what makes it special.
Which is exactly what it should be.