Auto Eroticism: BMW M6

The latest generation of BMW's premiere muscle car is (almost) here.

From Top Gear:

It's the second M car to get the very highly pumped 4.4-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine - first seen on the rather smashing new M5 - and therefore boasts 552bhp and 502lb ft of torque. That's more power than the Jaguar XKR-S. Power, naturally, goes to the rear wheels via a seven-speed M double clutch gearbox with launch control.

As such, BMW quotes a 0-62mph time of 4.2 seconds for the Coupe, and 4.3 seconds for the Convertible, 0-124mph in 12.6 seconds (13.1s for the drop-top) and the option of a 189mph top speed with the ‘M Driver's Package'.

Despite this herculean power and acceleration, BMW still reckons the Coupe will return 28.5mpg, though we suspect anyone achieving this hasn't really got the point of a twin-turbo V8. There's a carbon-fibre reinforced plastic roof for the coup', start-stop, and other Efficient Dynamics stuff, which brings CO2 emissions to 232g/km (239g/km for the convertible).

...Inside, there's lots of M badging, some leather, carbon fibre strips, illuminated sills and some digital assistants including lane departure warning, surround view, night vision with pedestrian recognition (do you really need a computer to tell you what a human looks like?) and Internet access. You might like to think of it as a 1,850kg, 552bhp Facebook app. Update your status to "BMW M6 is sideways".

The most interesting part of the numbers above is the 28.5 mpg estimation. That's roughly 16 mpg more than the previous M6 pulled. If that's anywhere near being accurate, I'd consider that one hell of an achievement by BMW's engineers.

The cost of all of this fantasticness? Approximately $150,000. There but by the grace of PowerBall go I.

My boy Armo with the heads-up.