It’s an important year for BMW, with M’s 50th anniversary and the debuts of the M3 CSL, M3 Touring and M’s first fully developed crossover, the XM. The 2023 M2 will also take a bow this year, and it’s clear from a prototype spotted on German roads that the automaker isn’t taking a break from big design ideas for its smallest boiling coupe. Instagram user berlin_cars ended up chasing a car with some new M Performance Parts. Using all the squiggly lines of the camouflage print, the back looks like the result of a design department that relentlessly demands “More Intensity”.
On top of the trunk is a structure that is less of a wing, more of an architectural arch that will appear in every glance in the rear-view mirror. Screwing a giant grab handle to the back is nothing like we haven’t seen before on production cars like the Porsche 911 GT3 and Dodge Viper; its aftermarket look here could also come from racing. The M2 CS Racing campaigned in the TC America series was equipped with a similar attachment. The exhaust we’ve also seen before and closer to home, the central trapezoidal quad-pipe configuration available in the M Performance Parts catalog for the M3 and M4. If this is the same setup, titanium pipes lose about 11 pounds compared to the stock exhaust, and an adjustable flap offers a guttural sound.
Those wider cars, however, give all the design details room to breathe. On the more compact M2, even with its robust hips, the stock car’s puffy detailing is already crammed in even before these powerful aftermarket bits.
The new M2 is expected to pack some other big punches. Power from a twin-turbo 3.0-liter inline six would reportedly run between 400 and 450 horsepower in base spec, with an estimated 406 pound-feet of torque. The M2 competition will add another 30 ponies to whatever the base car offers. After that there will be CS and CSL versions, which will at the very least involve harder dynamic edges, if not harder engines. Power is thought to go to the rear wheels only, via an eight-speed automatic or a six-speed manual. Inside, a large, curved display shows everything the M2 is up to via BMW’s latest iDrive 8 infotainment system.