Twenty thousand miles-the M Coupe's odometer now registers several dozen clicks past 21k-is a lot of distance to cover in soft-compound summer rubber. By that time the OEM Conti SportContacts were in need of replacement. For sake of experimentation, for the last thousand miles or so our Coupe has been wearing some of the newest summer rubber from our buds at Nitto. Amazingly, the Z-rated Nitto Invos have actually improved ride comfort to a fair degree. Engineer Febbo informs me this is likely due to a softer sidewall, which might trade a degree of initial turn-in, but from the seat of your pants it's difficult to gauge. You'd need identical M Coupes, I think, on a closed loop, one wearing Contis and one wearing Nittos, to really measure the change...
I'm jolted out of my reverie by the obscene fanfare of an all-too-familiar airhorn. I glance at my mirrors and find them filled with twenty tons of pissed-off, dirt-colored tanker truck. The mid-morning sun flashes off its split windscreen as it bears down on the small silver coupe, making the fascia resemble nothing so much as a murderous, lunatic face.
It looks like he wants something. And I'm in a giving mood.
I blip the throttle and knock it back into fourth, then roll hard into the gas. The S54 sings again and the Coupe surges forward, easily clearing the rapidly encroaching, rust-pocked bumper and slingshotting me once again down the road. I shift to fifth briefly to air it out a little, then blip back to fourth, shedding speed, then third as the BMW slices into the last set of switchbacks before the bottom of the hill. I never liked BMW manuals before I drove this car, finding them vague and uninspiring. The Z4 M's is a whole different story. Some complain it's too notchy, too deliberate, but that's exactly what I like about it. Easy to miss a shift maybe, but only if your name is Mary or Susan. And it's so utterly satisfying when you punch the lever home.
I concede the M Coupe can be a nightmare over bad pavement. The car itself remains fairly composed and isn't easily upset, but your backside will suffer. On smooth, cultivated tarmac-any good canyon road-it rides as comfortably as anything. Throw it hard into a few corners and I'd challenge you to measure the degree of body roll with your butt.
I hit a decreasing-radius hairpin and the Nittos groan ever so slightly as the front end pushes toward the turn's apex. I once wrote that the M Coupe is one of only a handful of modern cars with an inherent bias to oversteer. I stand by that analysis, but admit that with stability control fully engaged the M, like most other modern cars, does understeer approaching the limit. It's a built-in safety net, but switch off stability control, apply more aggressive, more abrupt steering inputs, and the tail will come around. You better be ready when it does.
I leave DSC engaged. I usually do on public roads. I've never really felt that breaking the rears loose made me a faster driver-outside of exorcising a little hooliganism, maybe. And now isn't the time to be going sideways. An old racer once told me, if you're goin' sideways, you ain't goin' fast. Modulate your speed, go smooth with your steering, and the car carves like a chainsaw. The tanker falls back into the distance where he belongs.
And catches me again on the grade slanting north to Highway 14. Damn, this guy just won't quit. I slow to 50, and the truck closes. I goose the throttle and pull away. I slow to 50. He closes. I goose the throttle. The airhorn howls.
I seem to remember a story someone told me once, a harrowing experience involving a big rig and an underpowered, piece o'crap red Plymouth. The story ended with one or the other plummeting off a cliff and erupting in flames. Supposedly the story was true. Or maybe I dreamt it.