We currently live in a world where automakers can take stuff out of cars, make them more uncomfortable and charge extra for it. What a time to be alive.
Continue Reading Below
These sorts of cars are the kind that are often called “race cars for the road”. They’re stripped out, hardcore, track day specials that are capable enough and legal to drive on everyday roads. Would you want to? Maybe every so often, as a bit of a novelty, but not everyday, as you’d likely develop crushed vertebrae. Among these sorts of cars are the Porsche Cayman GT4, most famously the Porsche 911 GT3 RS and the BMW M4 GTS. Admittedly, most of them are just sold as race cars for the road, but they’re actually a bit too posh for that. But is the M4 GTS the closest thing to an actual proper race car for the road?
Well, considering that it’s probably the least comfortable to live with everyday, it’s certainly possible. While cars like the 911 GT3 RS also forgo back seats for roll cages and have manually-adjustable seats, I’m not sure they are as nightmarish on regular roads as the M4 GTS.
With no sound deadening to actually be aware of, the M4 GTS is thunderously loud on the inside. From the free-flowing titanium exhaust to the sounds of pebbles pinging the underbody, it’s a cacophony of noise inside the GTS. Some of it great (exhaust), some of it not so great (road and tire noise), but all of it is loud. Then, there’s the ride, which can be brutal. The seats only adjust forward and backward, on a manual sliding rail, without requiring tools. If you want to adjust the angle of the back rest, you had better have your screwdriver handy. In a 911 GT3 RS, if you want to adjust the suspension, you press a button. In the M4 GTS, you have to take all four wheels off, get a tool in the trunk and manually adjust the coilovers. So don’t mess it up.
After hearing all of this, you might think that the M4 GTS isn’t a race car for the road but a proper actual race car. However, there are some oddly normal road car features still left in the GTS. Things such as auto start/stop, sat-nav and air conditioning are still present in the supposedly uber-hardcore M4 GTS. Why, though, it’s not as if someone is buying an M4 GTS to just cruise around in? And Auto Start/Stop, really? No M4 GTS driver is concerned with the fuel economy of an idling engine while they’re blasting around their local track. It’s a bit silly to have those functions in a car that seems so obsessed with weight savings that its sun visors are plastic. Save some proper weight and ditch the air-con, sat-nav and iDrive altogether.
However, despite its sort of counter-productive creature comforts, it’s still the most hardcore of all road-going race cars. It requires its owners to actually know a thing or two about racing and setting a car up properly. It requires its owners to suffer some discomfort for the added performance. It’s heavily compromised on the road, more so than in a 911 GT3 RS, which might make it the most race car-like road car you can buy.
[Source: IOL.co.za]
Dodge Viper ACR, McLaren 688 MSO HS or Lotus 3-Eleven, one of these three for sure. Not the GTS lol
I didn’t know the Lotus or McLaren were on sale. But I always forget about the Viper, you’re right that thing’s ridiculous lol.
Viper ACR is the ultimate, can’t lie about that!
The GTS seems like a fantastic track car but i feel the M3s including the GTS are underpowered it should not be that VW GTIs and other hatch are not to far of in performance, M3s should be competing against 911s and the GTS should be on a par with the GT3s.
The M4 does 0-62 in about 3,8 seconds, even faster if the conditions are really perfect and the GTS is even faster than that. How are VW GTI’s etc. (that do around 6,4 seconds) not far of in performance then?? And that’s only in a straight line. On a track, its RWD makes it even faster. So there are actually no hot hatches (unless maybe the A45 AMG or RS3 and of course the M140i) that come even close in performance. The M4 GTS IS, in fact, competing with the 911. It doesn’t quite match the ridiculous performance of the GT3, but it’s damn close.
I agree with peanut, but also agree with Senne. GTi’s are not at the same level, but Ive seen some of them go realy realy fast. The M4 GTS is down on power. BMW missed an opportunity here to make a real 911GT3 RS beater. By giving the M4 more power to atleast keep up with the Porsche. The M4 GTS handling is excellent already, but power output is too little to give the Porsche a run for its money.
Yeah, they should have given it more power. Then it would have been near perfect. It’s very fast still, but it could’ve been even faster. Same for the “normal” M4.
I would say that if we are talking track cars the Golf clubsport and Civic type R are both faster around the Nurburgring than the M4 the Golf R has a 0-60 time of 5.3 secs and the RS3 has 0-60 time of 4.9 secs in the wet both would give a m4 a hard time because of better grip i love Bmw but they need to separate there performance more from these hyper hatchs coming out the M4 GTS performance should of been the performance of the standard M4 look what the C63s and the rest of the competion are pushing out Bmw M3 and M4 should be up with the 911s, Chris harris done a comparison with a few high performance cars admittedly a few more expensive than the GTS but the M4 GTS came last in the drag race which was disappointing.
Dude the M4 GTS lapped the ring in 7:27.88, over 20s faster than the Clubsport S… You said Chris Harris but you’re talking about Motortrend… You’re not gonna do 0-60 runs in the wet anyway…
Your comment is so wrong wtf. The only true thing is that the car underperforms compared to a 911.
True the GTS is the standard for the M3,M4 at the moment with a tremendous ring time but it Could of been so much more how can you have the pinnacle of the M3,m4 range with the power output the same as the C63s my main point is and remember i am a BMW fan who has bought into the marquee hot hatches have evolved to the point they are treading on the toes of the coupes i.e. M3,M4,C63 and RS5 the other manufactures have jumped up in power but M3 and the M4 have only gone up in power by about 15 to 20bhp even tho torque has jumped up the A45 amgs and the RS3s are really close i am of the opinion the real competitor of M4 should be 911 and the GTS should be on a par of the GT3 also the ring times i quoted were for the standard m3,m4 vs the hatches Not the GTS.