BMW M2 Review 2026

BMW M2: Everything you need to know

The first BMW M2 of 2016 was a huge success, becoming the biggest-selling M car of all. Now a new BMW M2 has arrived, aiming to deliver the same beguiling, road and track-day sorcery. Does it deliver? Let’s hope so, because this is one of the last rear-wheel-driven, manual-gearbox cars BMW will ever build. Our BMW M2 review will reveal all.

Firstly, with the BMW 1 Series now front-wheel drive, the new BMW M2 is built on a shortened version of the BMW 3 Series and BMW 4 Series platform, making it somewhat larger and less shrink-wrapped than its predecessor and – at 1725kg – heavier too.

Its looks divide opinion wherever it goes. We’re not entirely sold, but would concede that it’s very colour sensitive. The baby blue specimen we first drove looked like something from a Hot Wheels set and was almost plasticky in appearance.

Unless you’re a toddler, do not attempt to gain access to the rear seats without planning plenty of time to extricate yourself at the end of the journey. Boot space, on the other hand, is fine at 390 litres – less than a Mercedes AMG CLA 45 S but more than an Audi RS3 saloon.

Under the bonnet lurks the marvellous 3.0-litre, twin-turbo straight-six already doing sterling service in the BMW M3 and BMW M4. It has been mildly dialled down in the BMW M2, delivering ‘only’ 480PS and 600Nm of torque while dispatching the 0-62mph dash in just four seconds, or 3.7 seconds if you've gone for the all-wheel drive M2 xDrive.

Other technical highlights include wide M3/M4 axles, 19-inch front and 20-inch rear tyres, a limited-slip differential, stiffer springing and adaptive dampers fitted as standard, plus anti-roll bars.

As with other M-cars, you can mix and match modes for the dampers, steering, engine response, brake pressure and traction control. Happily, you can store your favourite settings and then access them via the M1 and M2 tabs on the steering wheel to avoid rummaging through the menus again. 

An updated version arrived in 2024, coinciding with a refresh for the wider 2-Series range. The newer version looks the same, but gets an expanded colour palette, a new flat-bottomed steering wheel, updated infotainment software and a bit more power and torque (older versions have 460PS and 550Nm of torque).

A year later, the BMW M2 CS was revealed, offering a more track-focused take on the car. It features a smattering of carbon fibre reinforced plastic panels to lower the weight (including a boot lid with a lovely ducktail spoiler), more power and a stiffer chassis. 

Priced from just over £70,000, with the manual option slightly dearer, the BMW M2 is at the pricier end of this premium performance bracket, which includes rivals such as the Mercedes AMG A 45 S, various iterations of the recently discontinued Porsche 718 Cayman and the Audi RS3.

How we tested the BMW M2 

We've driven various examples of the current BMW M2 on both road and track. Most recently, we tested a standard, automatic M2 around Thruxton Circuit and spent a week driving the focused M2 CS on the road. We've extensively driven all of the M2's competitors, both past and present, helping us understand where the BMW sits in the mix. 

Is the BMW M2 a good car? 

Larger, heavier and perhaps a hint less playful than its predecessor, the new BMW M2 nonetheless feels like a more accomplished car. It now combines the power and pace you’d expect of an M car with newfound ride composure, handling precision, dynamic versatility, technical sophistication and configurability.

It feels sharper and more engaging than the RS3 and AMG A 45 S, but can't quite match the handling brilliance of the Cayman. But then again, as a four-seater with a decent-sized boot, it's a much more usable car than the Porsche. 

The BMW M2 has adaptive dampers fitted as standard, which means, in Comfort drive mode, it cossets in an option cost-free way no M car has ever done before.

Despite stiffer suspension and ultra-rigid body bracing, the car refuses to become unsettled on even the worst road surfaces. 

Being a relatively small car with a highly tuned suspension set-up, the BMW M2 isn’t the most relaxing proposition for a day spent on the motorway.

But the ride actually always remains on the acceptable side of supple and it’s tyre noise that may ultimately do your head in. Irritatingly, adaptive cruise control isn’t fitted as standard and will cost you over £1000 as part of a driver assistance tech package.

If long-haul comfort is essential to your ownership experience, we recommend opting for the standard BMW seats, which are perfectly supportive, no bother to clamber in and out of and don’t exacerbate the offset pedal issue when you’re driving the manual version.

When the going gets twisty, the BMW M2 really gets going. Dial in your favourite damper, steering, engine response, brake pressure and traction control settings via one of the M tabs on the steering wheel, plant your right foot and the car is absolutely in its element.

This may be a bigger, heavier car than its predecessor, but it’s also more powerful, more planted and more mature. It still grips and goes tremendously well, but it now has more composure at speed – a more Gran Turismo feeling of effortless power and control as it inhales A-road corners with extraordinary pace and poise.

Bung it down a B-road, however, and you’ll discover it retains the old M car capacity to misbehave if you so desire.

The steering may lack a little in feel, but it wants nothing for precision so you can place the car with consistent accuracy. There’s stacks of grip and you can lean on the rear tyres to an almost improbable extent without disturbing the traction control electronics. Oh, and the brakes are relentlessly prodigious.

However, scroll through the drive mode settings until you’ve disengaged those traction nannies – find the right environment – and a classic, oversteering M car is yours.

Is the BMW M2 CS worth it?

The CS ups the ante with a lower, stiffer suspension setup and various carbon fibre reinforced plastic elements, including the bonnet, roof and boot, plus tweaked aero incorporating a chunkier front splitter and a delicious-looking ducktail spoiler.

Really, the latter elements are about aesthetics – you simply aren't going to notice the extra downforce at road speeds and probably not on track unless you're a racing driver with highly tuned senses. The same goes for the weight reduction – its 45kg drop is not to be sniffed at, but this is still a heavy car. 

The stiffer chassis is much easier to pick up on. You'll need to take extra care when going over speed bumps and potholes, where the M2 CS can thump around with a noticeable lack of grace. On a twisty road, it starts to make more sense, with an extra sharp-feeling front end and more steering feedback than before. Body roll is pretty much nonexistent. 

There's also a glorious feeling of the CS being just a bit too powerful for its own good. You need to think about how and where you deploy its output, because the rear wheels can become overwhelmed. It gives this version of the M2 some nice contrast to the larger M3 and M4, which are now all-wheel drive only. 

It elevates the M2's already great driving experience to another level, but it's not game-changing in a way other CS-badged M cars have been (the M5 CS, for example).

You have to really be into the looks and the whole package to make it worth splurging on its huge premium over the standard car. But then again, the original M2 CS is doing very well indeed in terms of residual values and it should work out the same with the new one.

There’s just one engine, but what an engine. This is the 2993cc, twin-turbocharged straight-six petrol unit from the BMW M3 and BMW M4, but with some 50PS less. Not that you’ll notice in this smaller, dartier car.

Building to a delicious snarl, the engine still delivers 480PS at 6250rpm and 600Nm of torque between 2650 and 5870rpm (or 550Nm in the manual gearbox-equipped version). Earlier examples of the car developed a still very potent 460PS and 550Nm of torque regardless of gearbox type. 

The updated cars are a tenth quicker from 0-62mph, with the automatic doing the deed in four seconds dead, and the manual in 4.2 seconds. The M2 CS matches the output of the M4 at 530PS, dropping the 0-62mph time to 3.8 seconds. An all-wheel M2 xDrive was added to the range in 2026, which is the quickest of all, completing the benchmark sprint in 3.7 seconds.

The standard M2 has a limited top speed of 155mph, although you can bump this up to 180mph with the optional M Driver's Package. The CS gets a 188mph top speed straight out of the box, because it simply must have bragging rights, we guess. 

This is an engine that even sounds good at a slightly brisk, seamlessly smooth idle. The straight-six has the fabulous breadth of operating range and wonderful linearity of power delivery that aficionados of the BMW M3 and BMW M4 will recognise.

It is happiest, though, pulling from over 3000rpm, by which time any sense of turbo lag has vanished and it will spin on to over 7000rpm, building an intoxicating, addictive snarl quite unlike any you’ll hear from any other unit. The extra punch of the CS is definitely noticeable, too. 

There’s now a ZF torque converter in place of the dual-clutch transmission of the old BMW M2 and you can dial the shift speed and abruptness up and down through three settings.

In the third of three it chomps through the gears with a clipped punctuation that perhaps isn’t for everyday driving. It's ultra-smooth in the first of three, and sufficiently slick and fast enough in the middle setting.

The BMW M2 has not undergone Euro NCAP safety testing, but the regular BMW 2 Series Coupe achieved four out of five stars in 2022.

It scored just over 80% for adult and child occupant protection, but a slightly disappointing 64% rating for safety assist systems.

As standard, the BMW M2 is equipped with a parking assistant with a rear-view camera and sensors front and rear, a speed limiter and non-adaptive cruise control.

Earlier M2s had a Driving Assistant package, including things like lane assistance and rear collision prevention, but a lot of these elements are now included as standard. Adaptive cruise control is still an optional extra, though.

Space in the front of the M2 gives little cause for complaint. The electrically adjustable carbon fibre bucket seats on the car we drove allow you to sit snug and low behind the wheel.

However, getting into them is an ungainly exercise and extricating yourself positively painful thanks to the hard, thin, near-vertical ridge of the cushion side bolster, which threatens to cut your backside in half. 

Although the option of manual transmission in the UK is a good thing, right-hand-drive cars struggle to accommodate three pedals in the footwell without a considerable offset, which leaves the clutch on the centre line of the driver’s seat.

Unfortunately, the cushion side bolsters exacerbate this offset. Additionally, the centre-line on the seat itself is occupied by an ungainly, ridged carbon fibre cod-piece which is not remotely comfortable.

The biggest problem with the rear seats is getting in and out. Once you’re installed, they’re comfortable enough, although there’s precious little legroom and not much headroom for tall passengers.

Boot capacity is 390 litres, exactly the same as the rest of the BMW 2 Series range. And the rear seatbacks fold flat to extend the loadspace volume considerably.

Storage space within the cabin is somewhat limited. There are the usual cubby holes and door bins you’d expect, but anything of any size is going over your shoulder and on to the back seats.

Practicality takes a further hit in the M2 CS, which features a carbon fibre-reinforced plastic centre console which lacks both cupholders and an armrest. We really don't see the point – even with its various weight-saving measures, the CS is still far from a light car, so we'd rather it were a few grams heavier but still had cupholders. And somewhere to rest your left arm on a long drive. 

We can’t fault the cabin for build quality and it looks like a fully rigged M car in every key way, including the secondary control concept – M1 and M2 selector tabs on the steering wheel, digital instrumentation, satin chrome and carbon fibre trim and even the three-colour M Power ambient lighting panels in the doors.

But the Star Trek Next Generation-reject M Power-coloured digital driver’s instruments shaped in homage to the brand’s kidney grille are – frankly – ugly and no fun to look at or read. In all, there’s no doubting the premium, but must it all look so unpleasant?

BMW’s Curved Display infotainment system dominates the dashboard. It’s made up of a 12.3-inch digital driver’s instrument screen and a 14.9-inch central control display. 

There’s a head-up display, which is also graphically overwrought with a fat, go-faster striped panel to the extent that it’s both a source of information and a distraction.

On the plus side, the BMW M2 sports a rotary input multimedia system controller on the transmission tunnel to avoid the need for finger stabbing and greater distraction on the move. Unfortunately, though, all heating and ventilation controls are now part of the touchscreen.

The 14.9-inch screen benefits from the latest BMW software tech, which equates to super-fast responses, pin-sharp graphics and one of the better voice control systems around.

Top-level navigability is good, with customisable widget-style menus and user-set shortcuts as part of a quick reference menu for fast access to driver assistance functions and such. And navigation routing and mapping are excellent.

Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are also fitted as standard to stream your music and take advantage of your maps apps. There is also a small raft of M-specific apps, such as a lap timer and even a tool to analyse your drifting capabilities.

These are the latest On The Road (OTR) prices for the new BMW M2 as of May 2026 – prices can change, so please use these as a guide before checking BMW's latest price lists.

Is the BMW M2 good value compared to rivals?

The prices may sound pretty steep when you consider that an Audi RS3 can be yours for £62,570, but the M2 is much more powerful, better to drive and better equipped as standard. 

The BMW is much lighter on optional extras than a standard RS 3 (the specced-up RS 3 Vorsprung costs about the same as an M2, incidentally), although there are still a few very expensive things you can add. Like a £9500 Race Pack including a carbon fibre roof, or if you fancy the latter on its own, that will be £2300, please. 

The £92,475 charged for the M2 CS might sound absurd until you find out that near enough the same amount is charged for the Audi RS 3 Final Edition. And again, it doesn't end there. Adding carbon ceramic brakes adds about £9000, punting the price beyond £100,000. It seems particularly criminal considering the price of the M2 CS that adaptive cruise control isn't fitted as standard – that's another £550. And it's the same for the standard M2. 

Should you want to spend a bit less, used examples start from about £50,000.

As well as being the quicker variant, the eight-speed automatic BMW M2 pips the six-speed manual version for efficiency.

BMW says it averages 29.1mpg in the WLTP combined cycle and emits up to 220g/km of CO2, whereas the manual achieves a best of 28mpg and emits up to 228g/km of CO2. Both fall into the 37% benefit-in-kind band, but few will probably be taking a BMW M2 on as a company car. The auto-only M2 CS manages 28.2mpg. 

Making BMW M2 ownership straightforward is the company’s Service Inclusive package. You pay a lump sum up front and the company will provide all of the required servicing up to your car’s fifth year or 62,000 miles, whichever comes first.

In keeping with the BMW M2’s more accessible nature, though, its fixed-price servicing is the least expensive of the BMW M variants.

Otherwise, the BMW M2 comes with a conventional three-year, unlimited-mileage warranty. If you plan on keeping it we recommend opting for an extended BMW warranty. This is high-end engineering and any complicated problems could prove expensive to fix, so warranty extensions are well worth investing in.

Along with the usual £200 annual VED car tax bill, the M2 is well beyond the £40,000 threshold for the government's expensive vehicle tax supplement, which is an extra £425 annually from years two to six.

There are two versions of the car – the BMW M2, and the BMW M2 CS. The changes to the latter focus on changing the driving experience (lightweighting measures, more power and a stiffer chassis), rather than upgrading the standard equipment.

As such, the kit fitted to each is the same, comprising: 

• 19-inch front/20-inch rear wheels
• LED front and rear lights
• Interior ambient lighting
• Two-zone climate control
• Cruise control
• Electrically adjustable and heated front seats
• Auto-dimming, electrically adjustable and folding mirrors
• Auto-dimming rear-view mirror
• Harman Kardon sound system
• Heated steering wheel
• Front and rear parking sensors
• Wireless smartphone charging pad