The BMW M4 Competition: Plenty of Power, Not Enough Car for the Money — Rated 1/10

Start with what it is. The M4 Competition is the two-door flagship of BMW’s 4 Series M family, built around a 3.0-litre M TwinPower Turbo inline six. In its most powerful Competition xDrive form it produces up to 523 horsepower, reaches 100 km/h in 3.5 seconds, and shifts through an 8-speed M Steptronic automatic. A carbon-fibre roof is standard, the cockpit runs BMW’s Curved Display with Operating System 8.5, and the options list runs from carbon bucket seats to a carbon exterior package. None of those numbers are in dispute, and none of them are the problem.

The price is also not in dispute. BMW Canada lists the M4 Competition Coupé from $105,900 before freight, fees and options; as equipped at Canadian dealerships, advertised drive-away figures commonly land above $112,000. It is a six-figure car in every configuration a Canadian buyer will actually encounter.

The question our reviewer kept returning to is what that money buys — and in our judgment, the answer is: not enough. This is the Rating Agency’s opinion, and we state it plainly: at this price, the M4 Competition delivers less car, less comfort and less sense of occasion than its sticker demands.

Inside, our reviewer found the cabin small and cramped for a car of this price — a snug two-door cockpit that asks six figures and returns the practical space of far cheaper machinery. The view out through the windshield felt pinched to our reviewer, a narrow band of glass that made the car feel smaller from the inside than it looks from the street. Some drivers may find that intimacy sporting; ours found it confining.

Then there is the design. To our eye, the M4’s interior and exterior read less like a new idea than a touch-up — a familiar BMW shape and cabin layout that, in our view, the company has been drawing in various forms for decades, now wearing revised lighting and a larger grille. Buyers who love BMW’s design continuity will call that heritage. Our reviewer calls it stale.

In fairness, the spec sheet is real. The engine’s credentials, the drivetrain engineering and the badge’s motorsport history are all facts, and a buyer who wants exactly those things — the numbers and the roundel — may weigh them differently than we do. Our score is not a measurement of horsepower. It is a judgment of the whole experience against the price, and it is ours.

A 1/10 from the Torbrook Rating Agency reflects that judgment: in our reviewer’s assessment, the M4 Competition asks a great deal of money and, for it, returns too little car. At $105,900 and up, “fast” is not enough — and fast, in our view, is most of what is on offer.