[CARS]: South Africa’s best-selling performance car of 2024

The current generation G87 BMW M2 is a good blend of sporty performance. With a potent engine and refinement that most sport car purists desired.

The M2 was criticized for its looks when it was unveiled a few years back, some may have overlooked the performance capabilities and focused more on the esthetics. Although as soon as it hit South African soil, it became the best-sellingperformance car in 2024. It was being bought in every single province almost 2 cars were being delivered every two days.

Like most current BMWs it has a very bold design, a more box design from the previous generation M2. But it was a looker and depending on the color it could look meaner or uglier. Over the normal 2-series one can see the widebody on the M2, the front end is also very sporty and has a totally different rear-end. The only thing that is more 2-series is the taillamps, apart from that it is all bespoke for the M2.

The Interior is standard double-screen layout with IDrive 8 system. However, since this is the range topping M2, it is a spottier interior option like the Carbon fiber bucket seats, bright blue color options and many more. Even though it is a sportscar the interior is of luxury, BMW have found a way to make the M2 a comfortable performance car just with the interior alone.

The best bit is obviously the performance. The BMW G87 M2 takes a detuned version of the M3, M4 and X3M engine, meaning that it a 3L turbocharged Straight-six with 460 horsepower and 550 Nm of torque. Which is routed through either an eight-speed torque convertor automatic or a six-speed manual to the rear-wheels only. So, it is a baby M4, but in my opinion drives even better than that car, mostly because of the detuned nature of the engine and less weight. And it seems I’m not the only one who thinks so. Many M4 owners have traded in their cars for the M2, and this trend was seen a lot in 2024.

BMW later came out with a facelift model, which gave it more power and more standard features. The engine was again boosted to 480 horsepower and 600 Nm of torque, those models came into the market late 2024. But the pre-facelift ones could be the bargain sportscars for a long time, even against the Porsche 911.

The M2 is one of the last manuals and rear-wheel drive sports-cars on the market, which is why most enthusiasts resonate with it more despite the very loud looks.