What's the news?
The latest BMW Safety Car for the MotoGP has been revealed and it's the glorious M2 Coupé which gets the liveried treatment, leaving us with one of the best course cars you could possibly imagine.
Exterior
While we're hardly about to suggest that prospective M2 buyers will be happy driving down the street in cars wearing motorsport stickers and flashing roof lights, a lot of what you see on the M2 MotoGP Safety Car is available through the BMW M Performance catalogue of upgrades. So, ignoring the flashing corona headlight rings, plus the barrage of LED lights on the roof bracket, in the front grille and sequestered in the rear lamps, you need to look for the carbon side skirts, high-gloss black grilles, carbon mirror caps, carbon blades on the aerodynamic front package, a carbon rear diffuser and a prototype front splitter, made of... carbon. More of the black stuff is used on the tips of the BMW M Performance exhaust system fitted to the M2 Safety Car, and it makes up the rear wing with closed mounts too.
Further additions include a bonnet with a motorsport lock, an M Performance Air Breather in high-gloss black, and lots of gold detailing for the Alpine White M2 - you'll spot it most obviously on the alloys, although the brake callipers and rear wing mounts are coated in the colour, as are more bits inside...
Interior
... such as the gold roll cage (adapted from the item in the M4 GTS), gold seat brackets, gold steering wheel spokes and contrast stitching in the same hue. There's also a specially engraved gold plaque on the dashboard to point out the M2 Safety Car's uniqueness.
Also fitted within are Recaro racing seats with Schroth harnesses, a fire extinguisher, plus more BMW M Performance goodies - namely, the Alcantara steering wheel, the stainless steel pedals, the floor mats and the carbon fibre interior trim. To make the car safe when it is being air-freighted from round to round of the international MotoGP series, the M2 has a battery master switch and a fuel pumping device too.
Mechanicals
The turbocharged inline-six 3.0-litre petrol engine remains untouched, so BMW quotes 370hp, 465Nm and a 0-100km/h time of 4.3 seconds (as it's equipped with the M dual-clutch transmission (DCT). The company also outlines the fuel economy and CO2 emissions, but we're really not going to tell you those as they're also unchanged and it's pointless trotting out such trivia on a track-focused car like this.
There are some real technical gems hidden away underneath the M2's muscular frame, though, such as M Performance coilover suspension and a prototype version of carbon ceramic brakes, with the gold wheels clothed in grippy Michelin Cup tyres.
Anything else?
The MotoGP support fleet now features six M or M Performance BMWs - this M2, plus the water-injected M4, the M3 saloon (these are also both safety cars), the X5 M and M550d xDrive Touring (both medical cars), and an M5 for the series' safety officer.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A9e8rzfPwJg" width="560" height="315"></iframe>