Somewhere between torture and pleasure I stab the throttle. The engine spools up from 2,000 rpm to 5,000 rpm in the time it takes me to swallow the lump in my throat and the burnt orange BMW roars at my gear suggestion.
There’s a lot to love in the 2013 BMW M6. There’s also a lot to fear.
If it weren’t for the 15-inch anchors at every corner, I’d be plenty more judicious with my right foot. That kind of stopping power — the kind that could bring down
a full-size bear, or two, or three or four — is required when you’ve been offered the keys to unlock 560 horsepower. The twin scrolling turbochargers in here poke, prod and force the BMW 4.4-liter V8 under the hood into the stratosphere of performance coupes: 0-60 mph in 4 seconds, top speed of 155 mph (which is limited, very) and 500 lb.-ft. of torque. Five years ago, numbers like those could cost a quarter-million dollars.
The BMW M6 that I’m driving costs only half that. Hardly a basis for a value-for-money argument, but sometimes it’s easy to get carried away in a car with launch control. I can admit that.
And you won’t get tired of neck-jerking starts off the line; it’s a win-win feature. Your chiropractor will appreciate the extra billable hours, and you’ll appreciate reasons to smile on the way home from investment banking, or world running, or Bond villainy — whatever you do to afford a car that starts at $106,995.
For that money, the M6 picks up where the base 650i never really left off. Built on the same chassis as the 5-series and 6-series coupes, the M6 takes the 6’s already heady performance and puts more stank on it. The V8 is borrowed from the awkwardly named X5 M and X6 M and boosted slightly higher to coerce just 5 more horsepower from the turbocharged mill. The turbo V8 in the M6 (and by default M5 too) is the most powerful BMW engine ever made, even more than the outgoing V10 it replaces. That swap for forced induction from naturally aspirated hasn’t pummeled the M6’s torque curve either: it’s fat, flat and works way down low.
That means there’s no lag when you punch the throttle like I just did. The M6’s heads-up display gives you plenty reason to keep your eyes pointed exactly where you want to go. That’s a good thing.
Simultaneously, the active rear differential gives you plenty of reasons to go sideways too. The M6 is fitted standard with BMW’s Active M Differential, new this year, which helps shuffle power to the side with the most grip. Combined with traction control, the new system directs torque without nagging and imparts an ordinary jabrony such as me with a false sense of driving expertise. Those systems can be switched off, but I’d rather pretend with money in my pocket than risk it all in a car I can’t afford.
The seven-speed, dual, wet-clutch system isn’t helping my inflated ego either. The modified system from BMW’s other M cars quickly belts out gear changes via paddle mounted shifters. If mechanical engineering is your hobby, or you pass time reciting derivatives of inverse hyperbolic functions, you could consider one of six preprogrammed transmission settings BMW has appropriately named D1, D2, D3, S1, S2 or S3. Either way, faux-rowing your own gears or trusting BMW’s über-nomenklatur to pick the right speed, the M6 has a habit of making you feel better about yourself.
That’s not strictly from its prowess either. The M6’s Merino leather upholstery on your rump belies the firm support it gives in corners, delivered via electronic bolsters. The new M steering wheel feels firm and the steering feedback creates a perfect boundary from which to test your own handling limits. I appreciated the M6’s steering mounted paddles this time; in previous years for BMW both left and right paddles could shift up and down gears, depending on pushing or pulling the paddle. In the M6, it adheres to a more traditional right up-left down layout that works much better.
Up front, the seats are supple and supporting for driver and passenger. A 10-inch iDrive system clearly displays navigation, entertainment and communication options if you’re willing to read the manual. In other words, if you’re over 65 or don’t care to learn an iPhone (read: most M6 buyers), it pays to learn the system before you hit the pavement. Please. You could hit things — really, really quickly — in this car.
In back, the seats remind you that you should have bought an M5 if you were concerned with rear seats.
I’ll admit there are moments in the M6 where you’d prefer a little more elegance where there’s too much engineering, but those moments are few. And this 560-hp rocket isn’t, nay shouldn’t, be for everyone.
But between pleasure and pain the M6 is a pain for me: It’s a pain I don’t get to drive one of these every day.
Aaron Cole is a syndicated auto columnist. He knows he’s wrong, he’d just rather hear it from you. Reach him at aaron.m.cole@gmail.com or @ColeMeetsCars