When driving a BMW M2 Competition, who do you give the “enthusiasts wave” to? The obvious answer is fellow M2 drivers, but anybody else? What about lesser models of the 2 Series lineup? Other M-badged cars? Or sporting BMW cars in general?
It was far easier to determine who to wave to (or give the thumbs up) in my previous cars. In the Porsche 911, I only waved to other Porsche sports cars – the 911, Cayman, and Boxster. In the Mazda Miata, it was any other MX-5 on the road, no matter the generation. In the Subaru WRX STI, it was any other WRX, no matter the vintage. It’s simple, really: I wave to cars that were nearly identical to the one I was driving.
The BMW range of cars is more vast than the previous marques I’ve owned, and many of those cars carry sporting intentions. It isn’t like the M2 is the only game in the Bavarian portfolio. There’s the venerable M3/M4, the M5 sports sedan, the big M8 coupe, the M SUVs, and a whole host of slightly lesser variants that nonetheless can be considered as enthusiast cars (the M340i, for example). Therefore, the conundrum: how to differentiate between who’s an enthusiast who isn’t? Who to give the wave to?
The fast BMW SUVs are automatically eliminated. I don’t think any card-carrying petrol head would actually buy one of those for spirted driving. The X3M and X5M are great cars, but more of a transportation device – that happens to be super rapid – than a road carving machine. I don’t wave to those drivers. Back when I had the 911, I didn’t wave to Porsche Macan and Cayenne owners either.
The rule I came up with for the M2 is this: when I’m driving in the mountains, I wave to any other BMW on the road that isn’t an SUV. Most of them are M cars anyways, so there’s no risk of encountering a 230i convertible and confusing that driver. In everyday driving, I only wave to other M2 drivers, plus our close platform siblings the M3 and M4. Something about the kinship of having the same engine and drivetrain.
All of this seems trivial, but it’s a comradery between shared interests and shared vehicles. In a market with so many options, another person and I ended up picking the same car. If the pandemic isn’t still very much going on, I rather like to attend a few BMW-specific car gatherings.
Primarily to show off just how much of a careless klutz I am. Barely four months since I bought the M2 brand new, I’ve already curbed both passenger side wheels, and reversed the car onto another parked car. Thankfully, said parked car belonged to my brother, and the damage was minimal – one measly paint chip on the M2’s rear bumper.
All the assistive technologies in the world could not save me from my clumsy. The M2 has a backup camera and parking sensors, yet I still managed to back it onto another vehicle. The passenger side mirrors automatically dips when the transmission is in reverse, so the driver can directly see where the wheels are in relation to the curb when parallel parking. That didn’t stop me from scraping both curb-side wheels on the concrete.
Not sure if it’s hubris or brain issues: I can’t help but to carelessly damage that cars that I own. On the second day of owning the 911 GT3, I ran the front lip over a parking curb. Thankfully, that unpainted piece of plastic is meant to be bashed, band over the course of ownership I’ve scraped and bump it an embarrassing number of times. I too have backed the GT3 onto something, though fortunately it was a soft block of wood backstopping a parking stall, and I was going at a crawl. No damage.
It was a miracle I somehow did not curb any of the wheels on the 911.
My ND Miata suffered the least from my stupidity, though that’s because it’s so physically small that even my adverse powers couldn’t affect it. The only thing I can remember is scraping (again) the front lip on a driveway that I underestimated the steepness of. In hindsight, perhaps that MX-5 was a good luck charm, and I never should have sold it.
The WRX STI suffered the most. All four wheels have had curb damage, which is an incredible achievement. The bottom of the front bumper has been scraped to hell, and I’ve bumped it on quite a few times on quite a few things. I reversed the car into a concrete column at the school parking lot, leaving a peppering of paint chips on the rear bumper. One time on the highway I ran over a steel piece of debris, and it tore a gash off the paint on the left rear door. There’s a slight bend to the right front fender, from the time I switched lanes onto another car.
I was very surprised when CarMax quote as high a number as they did when I sold the WRX STI. The (lack of) depreciation on Subaru cars is indeed legendary.
It seems age and experience hasn’t stopped me from these stupid mistakes. Short of having a fully self-driving car, I’m afraid I can’t help myself. Not even 3,000 miles from new, and the M2 is already looking worse for the wear in certain areas of the car. I fully understand the virtue of not being precious with your cars, and that ultimately these material things won’t stay perfect forever. However, it still hurts because it’s me being clumsy, rather than the regular deterioration that comes with age and use. Easily preventable stuff, if I’d just paid complete attention to what I was doing.
At least I’m far less obsessive compulsive as I used to be. Something like curbing a wheel used to ruin my whole week. Nowadays, I can forget about something like that almost immediately, though not without some mental self-flagellation first. Cars are meant to be driven and used, and with that comes the inevitable scars and chips. I would just like for them to occur naturally, rather than due to my clumsiness and stupidity.
Nothing much to report on the M2 this month. February is short, and because (again) of the pandemic, opportunities to drive and hang out is minimal. 413 miles this month, under these circumstances, is a testament to how fun the M2 is to drive. It wasn’t my initial infatuation with something new that colored my feelings: this pugnacious BMW coupe remains as ensnaring as those first moments. I just want to keep driving, and hopefully not back the bumper into any more stationary objects.
See you next month!
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Date acquired: October 2019
Total mileage: 2,792
Mileage this month: 413
Costs this month: $235.81
MPG this month: 20.21