The BMW M2 is a brilliant car to take to the track. Almost all reviews posted online claim that the M2 is basically the best car BMW offers right now, considering the price/performance ratio. But is that good enough to take on rivals considered more up field like Porsche, for example? The BMW M2 would be a good rival for the Cayman on the track but in the video below we’re not on a race track and the car going up against it is not a Cayman.
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Instead, we’re looking at a good old-fashion drag race done on an airfield. The cars going at it are a BMW M2 and a 718 Porsche Boxster S. That’s right, the M2 is going up against the cheapest Porsche you can get. Does that mean the Stuttgart machine is slow? Well, as you’re about to see, that’s pretty far from the truth. The thing is, the Boxster, just like most of the Porsche range, received a new engine recently.
These days, the Boxster is powered by a 2.5-liter, 4-cylinder engine that makes, in the Boxster S configuration, 350 HP and some 420 Nm (310 lb-ft) of torque. Those figures seem like easy pray for the more powerful BMW, right? The M2 comes with a 3-liter straight six configuration, good for 370 HP and up to 500 Nm (369 lb-ft) of torque. The thing is, the Boxster still bests it when it comes to power/weight ratio, with 4.4 kg/hp compared to 4.5 kg/hp.
Sure, the difference is small but so is the gap between the two cars at the end of the race. Even though both of them come with launch control, in typical GT Board fashion, the race is done from a rolling start. If they would’ve had a standing start, the figures on paper claim the M2 should be just 0.1 seconds faster with a 4.3-second dash to 100 km/h (62 mph) in automatic guise. No matter how you look at it, these two are incredibly close.
If the M2 wasn’t warmed up, it might not have been running on overboost for full torque output.
Right. How could a Boxter win. It had to be that. Probably pulled right out of his garage and ran this drag. Or maybe the tire pressure was low. Yeah. Has to be it.
Not everyone knows it needs warmed up for a while before you get the full 369 ft/lbs. I also realize the Boxster is 500 lbs lighter, which is why it should win. The Bimmer has a back seat (albeit for kids), and the Porsche’s a convertible. It’s typically not the same buyer anyways.
Where was the drag race? Looked like a rolling slow race to max? That’s not even a thing. Everyone knows the m2 does best 0-60.
The Porsche Boxster S eats M2 in that rolling start drag. M2 took off first and S reels it in. Porsche by a country mile
Who does that silly rolling start racing? A drag race is done from a dead stop…. Anything else is “ricer” racing….
Manual M2 ?