Clarkson on the Z4 M roadster
And then, on a trip down the motorway, I thought: “Hang on a minute. This is jolly comfortable.” And it was. Early Z4s rode like their tyres were made out of bits of Edinburgh, but this one, the sportiest of the lot, was fairly soft and compliant. And quiet, too.
Sometimes with the Merc I daren’t use full power because the racket from those tailpipes verges on being embarrassing. But in the Beemer all is soft and gentle.
And that’s what this car is all about, actually. Contrary to what I’d been expecting, it’s not a balls out, hunkered down M3. It’s not a Patriot missile built to bring down the AMG Scud. It’s a fast and comfortable cruiser; closer in spirit and character to the Jaguar XK.
On that basis I think the price is good, the looks are good, the hood is good, the engine is good. My complaints are few and small. As usual with BMW, I loathed the idiotic sat nav system, the fuel tank is far too small, and there’s a bit too much buffeting when you put the roof down and go really fast.
This car, then, is not vodka and cranberry juice. And nor is it Baileys and lime juice. It’s a well made, carefully prepared, slow and very comfortable screw up against the wall.
Again on the Z4M roadster changed his mind again :roll:
Last summer, while you were on holiday, I was in the high desert of California tearing around a racetrack in a selection of powerful and exotic cars.
Each night I’d get to the bar in the hotel and relive some of the better moments from my day. The time when the Dodge Viper stuck a wheel on the gravel and made earthquake noises as I wrestled to regain control. The time when I executed a perfect power slide in a Corvette Z06. The time when I hit the ton in Ariel’s little Atom.
And then, the next morning, there’d be an all new selection of cars to drive, and that night an all new selection of he-man tittle-tattle. Then one day I arrived at the track to find, sitting in the early morning desert sunshine, a BMW Z4-M.
Oh dear. This was a bit like sending a food critic to the best restaurant in the world and presenting him with a Big Mac. It looked all wrong, parked among the Vipers and the Ferraris and the hyper-tuned Mustangs. It looked boring and grey. A Liberal Democrat in a sea of Monster Raving Loonies.
With a limp heart and not much enthusiasm I eased out onto the track and, with my mind in neutral, set off to slither about for the cameras.
The thing is, though, that after a short while it became screamingly obvious that despite the girl-next-door looks and the miserable 3.2 litres of homo-power, this car was head and shoulders above everything else I’d driven out there.
Where a Viper or a ’Vette shouts and waves its arms about, the little Beemer just gets on with the job of going fast and telegraphing messages to the seat of your pants and your fingertips, instantly and with no ambiguity at all. Out there in the desert, it was a sniper’s rifle in a field of howitzers and mortars.
And the Coupe
Sadly, I’m unable to be quite so enthusiastic about the limited edition BMW Z4 M coupé — a hard-top, hardcore version of the Z4 M convertible. The idea’s good enough. I reviewed the soft-top car a few weeks ago and thought it quite comfy, more a rival for the Jaguar XK than a Honda Fireblade. So the notion of beefing up the suspension and adding a roof to create a stiff road-going racer — yes, that sounds grand.
Hmmm. The first problem is that its back end appears to have been styled by someone who wasn’t concentrating. The old Z3 M coupé was deliberately ugly, like the bastard son of Gérard Depardieu and a bread van, whereas this new one’s just plain, like a supermarket checkout girl.
The second, bigger problem is one of expectation. It’s a long-nosed, short-tailed, two seater in the mould of, say, the old Austin Healey. You know it’s been stiffened up and you know it has the engine from an M3. You can see the fat tyres and the four exhaust pipes, and as you sit there gripping the almost absurdly thick rimmed steering wheel, you are expecting greatness.
And it doesn’t come. Drive it normally, on reasonably smooth roads, and it feels like a normal Z4 M, only with a hard roof and an ugly backside. And you can’t see why you might want to spend nearly £42,000 on such a thing.
Then you find the sort of twisting, bumpy back road that the Ramblers’ Association would like to see governed with a 3mph speed limit and you think: “Yes. Here we go.”
But it won’t. Oh sure, the engine’s a masterpiece but the traction control light flickers constantly, suggesting that the suspension is so stiff the rear wheels are actually airborne half the time. So it lurches and pitches and is generally pretty horrid. Couple this to brakes that are too sharp, a clutch that requires practice and a steering system that’s been toughened up — but not enough — and you’re left with something rather underwhelming.
It’s probably the first disappointing BMW M car I’ve ever driven.
If you want this sort of car, the Porsche Gayman is an obvious rival. It goes harder but is deeply embarrassing to be seen in. So what I’d do is buy the soft-top Z4 M instead. Or if you want something really fun for the weekend, buy a digger.
Well, he still has some rude comments about the coupe but in another year or so he'll suddenly wake up and love that as well!
