First Drive: 2007 BMW M6 Convertible

Previews

Too much equals not enough? The pricey, portly M6 ragtop trades speed for sex appeal.

BMW hasn’t had it too easy from us recently. The Bavarian masters of driving arts once had an easy ticket to a first-place finish in virtually every comparo they entered. But then came iDrive, then active steering, and then everyone’s favorite “whipping tech,” the sequential manual gearbox. You could argue that those technologies, in many cases, created as many problems as they solved, at least from the purist’s point of view.

A brighter spot came in the form of the 2006 BMW M6 coupe, a 6-series coupe made even more salivating with zoomier styling, a sexy carbon-fiber roof, and one of the most delicious engines on God’s green earth: a race-bred, heart-pounding, high-revving 5.0-liter V-10 producing an incredible 500 horsepower at 7750 rpm and 383 pound-feet of torque at 6100 rpm. So prolific is the engine that not even the entire alphabet’s worth of techno-acronyms could keep the fun away. Then came the new convertible version—whoo-ee! What could be better, right?

Looks to Kill, Comfort to Thrill

Our tester showed up in the M6 coupe’s “feature color,” Indianapolis Red, a metallic crimson that looks no less fetching on the convertible, even with its black convertible top raised. With a smiling, M-specific front bumper topped by 6-series brooding headlamps, there is something deliciously ironic about the front end of the M6. Down the bodysides are sill extensions and, of course, fender vents with M6 badge inlays. In back, the rear apron is sculpted to match the front end and also to accommodate the quartet of fat exhaust tips through which the V-10 sings its high-pitched song (a song that, incidentally, is easier to hear than in the closed-roof M6).

The M6’s interior is no less intense. The optional carbon-fiber center-stack trim on our tester—the best $300 you can spend, we feel—glistened in the sunlight, and pretty much everything else that wasn’t aluminum was covered in Indianapolis Red and Black Merino leather. We’re still no fans of iDrive, but at least the M6’s pivoting display didn’t get washed out in the sunlight as with so many such systems on other cars.

The front seats are wonderfully supportive, although even at an as-tested price of nearly $116,000, they lacked the active side bolsters found on the M5. The M6 also could benefit from an extra cup holder (it comes with only one), more spacious back seats, a truly usable glove box, and an HVAC system that can keep up with the torrential top-down windstorm that occurs when speeds climb toward (or, um, past) legal highway speeds.



Performance

Heavier, Slower

At a claimed 4400 pounds, the M6 convertible is an eye-popping 500 pounds heavier than the dimensionally identical, carbon-fiber-topped, 3908-pound M6 coupe. Yep, you read that right: 500 pounds. This could explain why, even with the sequential gearbox on its quickest setting and the power button activated (more on that later), it seemed more difficult to get the M6 convertible’s sticky 285mm-wide rear tires to chirp as easily on takeoff (and even during first-to-second gearchanges) as it does in the 300-pound-lighter M5 (to say nothing of the featherweight M6). This also may account for an even greater feeling of mass than in either of the M6 convertible's plenty hefty 500-hp siblings. BMW says the ragtop’s 0-to-60-mph time slips just 0.1 second compared with the M6 coupe's, which, based on our testing of the M6 coupe, would put the convertible at 4.2. We didn’t get a chance to test the convertible, but it certainly didn’t feel as if the two variants would be so close.

So what accounts for all that heft? As with the entry-level 6-series convertible, the 650i, the structure has been reinforced in numerous places to retain structural rigidity, leaving it with numbers quite close to those of the closed-roof car. Impact protection—side and rollover—was addressed in the form of reinforced structure, pop-up roll bars, and a reinforced A-pillar and windshield header. And, of course, all those motors controlling the convertible top account for a bunch of pounds, too.

That having been said, taken on its own (i.e., not comparing it with the overachieving coupe), the M6 still feels quick. Indeed, 4.2 seconds to 60 is far from slow. And it shares the M6’s 155-mph top speed. Although we’re getting no more used to SMG, we do love the ease of use of the sexy paddle shifters. Even better news: A regular shift-it-yourself six-speed manual has recently become available on all M5 and M6 models.

Still a Dancer

For all that weight, what seems unchanged from the seat of the pants is steering feel. Turning the wheel is met with scalpel-like precision and perfect weight that increases with speed. Highway stability is as sure-footed as, well, you might expect a 4400-pound BMW to be, and with the adjustable dampers set on comfort, ride quality is almost plush. Set on the sportiest setting, however, the ride becomes brittle, although directional changes are quick and deliberate and body roll is quashed. At that point, you might want to try steering with your right foot as opposed to your hands (providing you’re in the northern part of the rev range).


Price

Then there are those fabulous cross-drilled, pie-plate brakes, which are tremendously powerful and seem not at all concerned with the convertible’s extra quarter-ton. What’s more, properly programmed, the M6’s stability-control system can be wonderfully unobtrusive, even when not “deactivated,” although given the car’s formidable size, we didn’t find ourselves pushing its limits unless there was plenty of wiggle room in case something went afoul.

All told, we found the M6 ragtop entertaining. Like that fat girl at your high school prom who could dance all the way “down, down, down” to the ground in “Rock Lobster,” we were left amused, if not aroused.

A Trade-off not Everyone Would Make

Which brings us to the bottom line: with a base price of $108,675 (six grand more than the hardtop), the M6 convertible really should leave us salivating as much as the coupe does. Making matters worse was its as-tested price of—yee-ouch—$115,770, in which state our M6 convertible came missing several features that we believe ought to have made an appearance, including radar cruise control (even though we wouldn’t have liked it), curve-following headlamps, and ventilated seats.

Thus, we believe that for some—including many of us at Car and Driver and, we suspect, many of you—the added glamour of al fresco motoring might not be enough to offset the compromised performance and added cost of the convertible M6 versus the coupe.

Still, we wouldn’t kick it out of bed for eatin’ crackers.

BY STEVE SILER
caranddriver.com