Anyone who has driven the BMW M240i knows that it beats its weight class. It performs well on paper, but the way it performs in the real world suggests its performance numbers are being drastically underestimated. So when it came time to drag race all of its modern German rivals, almost all of whom are more powerful, it almost seemed inferior. But was it able to overcome that by being the high achiever we know it to be?
In this new drag race from Carwow we see how the BMW M240i competes against the Mercedes-AMG A45S, the Audi RS3 and the Volkswagen Golf R. But there is a twist. All cars in the race are tuned. Aside from their different mood states, most of the cars are pretty much alike. All four cars are from Germany, all four cars use turbocharged engines and all four cars are all-wheel drive (the M240i can also be supplied with rear-wheel drive). However, the BMW is the outlier of the bunch.
AMG, Audi and Volkswagen are all front-wheel drive based 4x4s and all available as hatchbacks (the RS3 can also be a sedan and in this video it is). AMG and Volkswagen have 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engines, while the Audi has a 2.5-liter turbocharged five-cylinder engine. This makes the 3.0-litre six-cylinder engine in the BMW the biggest of the bunch. However, in this race all four cars were tuned so the Audi and AMG made 503 hp while the Volkswagen made 530 hp. This leaves the BMW M240i with its 460 hp the weakling. So which tuned version is the fastest?
In the first race, Watson starts ahead of everyone else in the M240i, grabbing an incredible lead he’ll never give up. It was pretty shocking because the tuned M240i was underpowered. However, it seemed like he skipped the start a bit. Even more surprising, however, was the Golf R. Not only was it the most powerful car in the test, but it was also driven by former Top Gear Stig Ben Collins, who failed to start it properly. Of course, you don’t expect that from a professional racing driver.
However, once they got it right, Watson didn’t jump and Collins got the start right, things were very different and the race was quite interesting. It’s also interesting that in terms of performance, the BMW M240i needs to be seriously inferior in order to really lose races against its rivals. It’s so competent out of the box that it almost never loses to its natural competition. BMW gets a lot of flak for many of its modern cars, but its B58 engine is a masterpiece.
